Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) has weighed in on the recent news that President-Elect Donald Trump plans to impose tariffs on all exports to the US from Canada and Mexico, potentially as high as 25 percent.
Concerns from KAP
Colin Hornby, Manager of Communications and Stakeholder Relations at KAP, explains there are definite concerns about the potential impacts if this actually takes place.
"There were 4.53, I think is the number is 4-and-a-half billion dollars, in AG exports from Manitoba alone into the US last year. Obviously, that's a huge impact on the economy. We've kind of been looking at this and we're happy that we saw some leadership from the federal government and provincial first ministers to meet and talk about how to strategize on future relations with the incoming administration. As of now, we're not sure what will happen."
Impact on Producers
Considering the possibility that producers may have to recuperate losses by raising their prices across the board, including costs to domestic consumers, Hornby points out that anything impacting the free flow of goods between Canada and the US, their largest trading partner, could have detrimental effects.
"It's an incoming administration talking about their plans and they've sort of set what they deem to be the resolution. So, what are the ways Canada can respond to this to the satisfaction of the incoming administration? From the KAP standpoint, our economies are so heavily integrated, and I don't think it's good for anyone to have anything that impacts the ability to trade freely and get goods, whether it's coming from Canada to the US or from the US to Canada. We're so integrated as a North American supply chain. We just want to try and make sure that the federal government and the provincial governments are all working together to explain that to the incoming administration, and make sure that we don't impact that free flow of goods."
Upcoming Meeting in Des Moines
Des Moines, Iowa, has scheduled a meeting with Canadian representatives in the AG sector, and KAP is one of them.
"We'll be attending, and we support the State AG and Rural Leaders Conference in Des Moines, IA. We've booked that a while ago, but that was prior to this topic coming up recently. We're going to talk to different AG leaders and elected officials in the US about Canada/US relations, and I'm sure this will be one of the many topics that will be discussed. They're just general conversations around how to best work together from an AG perspective, given again that integration of our economies and how our pork is sold so much down into the US, and other commodities are selling into the US. There's a lot of synergies there."
Local Producers' Concerns
Hornby notes local producers are talking about the issue and are concerned about what's going to happen.
"Ultimately, anything that impacts their business and their ability to operate their business is of concern to them, and we're hearing from them whether it be online or on the phones. People have some concerns."