Local firms brace for impact of United States/Canada tariff feud
As a trade war continues between the United States and Canada, local firms and nonprofits seek creative ways to stay afloat amid uncertainty.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration imposed 50% tariffs Aug. 22 on Canadian goods — including natural honey, alcohol, smartphones and toilet tissue — following the collapse of trade negotiations, according to an Associated Press report.
Canadian leaders countered Tuesday with retaliatory tariffs — ranging from 15% to 50% — on about $20 billion worth of American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment, that will go into effect Sept. 8, per the AP.
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Fabricated steel is ready to be shipped to customers at McGregor Industries in Dunmore Thursday, August 27, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
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Fabricated steel is ready to be shipped to customers at McGregor Industries in Dunmore Thursday, August 27, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Grace McGregor Kramer, vice president of strategy and operations for McGregor Industries, a Dunmore-based steel fabricator, noted the company has learned to adapt to challenging circumstances over more than a decade. Recently, the threat and implementation of tariffs from countries, including Canada, poses new problems.
“We’ve been in business for over 100 years, so we just try to figure out, depending on what the market is, whether it’s good or bad, places to go and try to get creative, but it’s unfortunate when it feels like the headwinds are self-inflicted for small businesses like us,” she said. “It kind of feels like one thing after another. We’re able to pivot and we’ve been able to get creative about different avenues. When sectors aren’t doing as well, we try to figure out other things to do, but it’s just one more thing for small businesses like ours to fight against. We’ll try to get as creative as possible in order to continue to build a backlog to keep our workers in northeastern Pennsylvania busy.”
McGregor Industries sells to the Canadian steel suppliers who in turn sell products back to the United States.
“There are lots of different types of Canadian steel — unfabricated steel like raw beams or plate that gets shipped to the United States and gets fabricated, that’s typically what Trump is talking about when he’s talking about tariffs, but what sometimes falls under that umbrella are Canadian steel fabricators that buy American steel, fabricate it into beams and columns, and then ship it back to the U.S.,” McGregor said. “They sometimes fall under the tariff umbrella and sometimes don’t. If you’re building a 50-story building, and a Canadian structural fabricator is fabricating the American steel, we will sell our American-made stairs to the Canadian steel fabricator, and then we fabricate and sell the stairs. It just happens to be under contract. That’s such an example of why blanket tariffs are so shortsighted because this one, tiny piece of an industry is completely global. It’s goods flowing across the border in either direction. We work with Canadian steel fabricators as a customer so if they’re hurt by it, we, an American fabricator, are also hurt by it.”
McGregor Kramer fears concerns regarding price fluctuations may dissuade some clients from moving forward with sizable jobs.
“For us, what will happen is you’ll have an owner who is on the fence about starting a building decide not to because there is so much uncertainty, and that’s what we saw a year ago,” she said. “There was about a six-month, true pause in orders because owners were (thinking) maybe I’m going to make this $500 million investment in a building, but if I have this headwind and this uncertainty, maybe it doesn’t make the numbers work.”
Chet Mozloom, executive director of The Lands at Hillside Farms in Kingston Twp., stressed the nonprofit has been dealing with the rising price of glass bottles for its milk — which are shipped from Canada.
“Farms like ours that have cows process on the spot and use glass bottles, probably 95% of anybody who uses glass, returnable bottles use Stanpac products, and they’re based in (Ontario),” he said. “Outside of tariffs, just transportation alone has been driving it up.”
Mozloom expects to raise the deposit refund from $2 to $3 in the near future to encourage customers to return the bottles to the farm.
Additionally, Mozloom regularly monitors news reports to stay abreast of any new developments on the trade front.
“We’re always watching these tariffs and if they’ll affect us or not,” he said. “It didn’t hit yet, but it could at any moment, the tariff. If it hits them, it’s going to hit us and it’s going to hit the deposit rate.”
Bob Durkin, president of the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce, emphasized tariffs don’t benefit American businesses or consumers.
“Tariffs, in general, are just not sound public policy, and it’s been proven historically,” he said. “It’s not good for business and it’s not good for the consumer. Given the enormity of our trade relationship with Canada, notwithstanding its proximity and the opportunities for our citizens to be able to travel across borders, for a state like Pennsylvania, which is relatively close to Canada, it cannot be good for the economy of the Commonwealth. This round is just happening so it’s hard to judge what the impact is going to be, but overall I think the very fundamental concept of a trade war with one of your best partners is not good for our local economy.”
While Durkin learned many chamber member businesses found a way to work around previous tariffs, he stated the other choices may not be as lucrative.
“For the most part, those that responded indicated they already had alternative sourcing for a lot of their materials, but not everybody,” he said. “And, they may be able to find alternative sources but they may not be equal. I don’t think you’re going to see a lot of businesses panicking, but you are going to recognize that the additional cost, additional time, lead times on getting the supplies, and the cost of processing. It’s all going to be passed on to the consumers.”