https://www.timesunion.com/7day-state/article/Trump-tariffs-seen-as-threat-to-upstate-N-Y-12958502.php
Trump tariffs seen as threat to upstate N.Y. trade with Canada
Published 6:15 pm, Thursday, May 31, 2018
Washington
President Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Canada and other nations will undercut the growth of cross-border trade, especially in the North Country, lawmakers and regional economy specialists said Thursday.
“I strongly oppose these tariffs on our nation’s closest economic partner, Canada,” said Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, who represents the North Country. “The shared production of goods by the U.S. and Canada actually makes our goods more competitive in global markets against China and others.’’
Originally announced in March, the tariffs on steel and aluminum were put on hold as negotiations proceeded. But the White House went ahead with a 25-percent tariff on steel and 10-percent tariff on aluminum from the EU, Mexico and Canada, citing “the threatened impairment to America’s national security.”
The White House on Thursday cited a Commerce Department finding that cheaper imports would continue to undermine U.S. steel and aluminum producers, resulting in “a situation where the United States would be unable to meet demand for national defense and critical infrastructure in a national emergency.”
The decision was a follow-through on a Trump 2016 campaign promise to scrap or substantially rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement that Trump blamed for killing U.S. manufacturing jobs.
But Stefanik and the region’s other Republican House member, John Faso, R-Kinderhook, went against their party in decrying the potential impact on the upstate economy.
“These tariffs are going to hurt small manufacturers and their workers by raising the cost of their goods,” Faso said. “This is a short-sighted action which will hurt our economy and sow chaos among our allies and American manufacturers.”
Canada is New York’s number-one destination for exports, amounting to $12.5 billion in 2017, according to U.S. Census data. Trade with Canada supports about 681,000 jobs in New York.
And according to Canadian figures, New York was the destination for $1.3 billion in Canadian aluminum and $366 million in iron and steel alloys and semi-finished products. With tariffs imposed, those products presumably would become more expensive.
Plattsburgh has earned the reputation for being “Montreal’s U.S. suburb,” awash with Canadian companies’ U.S. locations. Among them: Bombardier, Nova Bus, Medisca and Imeco Cables.
“Plattsburgh has more in common with Montreal than New York City,” said Mark Eagan, president and CEO of the Capital Region Chamber.
Eagan said the impact of the tariffs would be felt less in the Capital Region than areas like the North Country and Buffalo.
Both have suffered prolonged bouts of economic depression, he said, but are showing signs of revitalization attributable in varying degrees to boosted trade with Canada.
“These are economies that need all the help they can get right now,” Eagan said. “So why create impediments to growth? What they’re doing is not a solution.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has enjoyed a friendly back-slapping relationship with Trump, called the tariff imposition “totally unacceptable.”
The U.S. actually has a $2 billion surplus in steel trade with Canada, Trudeau said, and Canada buys half of U.S. steel exports — more than any other country in the world.”
He cited the Canadian-U.S. military alliance on battlefields in World Wars I and II, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan.
“These tariffs are an affront to the long-standing security partnership between Canada and the United States, and in particular, to the thousands of Canadians who have fought and died alongside American comrades-in-arms,” he said.
