By Staff Reporter
BUFFALO, N.Y. — There is no deal, only technical-level talks, and a new deadline is coming. That is where the trade fight between the United States and Canada stands, and few places have more riding on it than the Niagara Frontier.
The Trump administration plans to raise its tariff on Canadian-made cars, trucks and auto parts to 50 percent on Jan. 1, double the current 25 percent rate, according to reporting by Money.ca. That would add to a dispute that has already escalated several times since negotiations broke down in August.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer gave no sign last week that Washington would back off. “We speak with our Canadian counterparts frequently, including at the highest levels. I think right now people are seeing where things land,” Mr. Greer told CNBC on Oct. 8, as reported by Reuters. He said Ottawa had “a little bit of preoccupation” after Quebec’s Oct. 5 election, in which the separatist Parti Québécois won a minority government. “I think we’re we’re holding fast with the Canadians,” he said. “When the Canadians want to get to yes, obviously we’ll be there ready to talk.”
How we got here
The timeline comes from federal proclamations and trade-law analyses.
In July, President Trump used Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, a rarely used law, to impose 50 percent duties on certain Canadian goods. Canada pulled its negotiators out of Washington in August, and the duties took effect on Aug. 22. Prime Minister Mark Carney said the U.S. had made last-minute changes Canada could not accept, CBC News reported. Ottawa answered with its own tariffs on Sept. 8.
On Sept. 8, the White House also issued five more proclamations. As of Sept. 15, Section 338 duties began stacking on top of existing steel and aluminum tariffs, bringing the extra duty on some structural steel and aluminum products to 75 percent, according to an analysis by the law firm Troutman Pepper Locke. As of Sept. 29, the U.S. banned imports of packaged Canadian beer, wine and spirits, Canadian whey and molasses, and motorcycles with engines over 800 cc. The firm noted that a product’s qualification under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement gives it no protection from these measures.
The USMCA itself is in doubt. At the agreement’s first joint review on July 1, the United States declined to renew it in its current form, the Buffalo Niagara Partnership noted in a September briefing for members. The agreement remains in effect, but its long-term future is uncertain.
Speaking at the G20 trade ministers’ meeting in Milwaukee on Oct. 1, Mr. Greer said “there are a handful of outstanding issues that are quite difficult to resolve,” according to CBC News. “We have a trade policy where we’re not inclined to go to zero tariffs because we’re trying to reshore,” he said.
Mr. Carney has said Canada “stands ready to negotiate in good faith.”
What it means on the Niagara River
For Western New York, Canada is not a distant market. The partnership estimates that the binational region has more than eight million people and more than $400 billion in economic activity. Niagara Falls, Ont., Mayor Jim Diodati has said the area’s four international crossings carry about 10 million cars and 2 million trucks a year.
“Our economies are tied together,” Mr. Diodati told WKBW-TV after Ottawa announced its retaliatory tariffs. “Our cities are branded as one. Most people in the world don’t realize there are two.”
Local manufacturers say the constant changes are a problem in themselves. “Manufacturing is a very capital-intensive business,” Peter Ahrens, executive director of the Buffalo Niagara Manufacturing Alliance, told the station. “If you have a lot of variation in tariffs — they’re on one day, they’re off the next day, or what’s going to be the next tariff — it’s going to stymie business investment.”
Not every regional leader blames Washington. Rep. Nick Langworthy, a Republican who represents dairy farmers across the Southern Tier, has said Canada needs to open its market. “Canada is an important ally,” he said in a statement. “But friendship is a two-way street. We need a fair deal that strengthens both nations and delivers for American workers and farmers.”
The shoppers who haven’t come back
Federal travel data show how much Buffalo’s retail and hospitality businesses have lost. Statistics Canada reported Tuesday that Canadian residents made 5.6 percent more return car trips from the United States in September than a year earlier. But that total was still 31.1 percent below September 2024, before the trade fight began. Trips in the other direction are rising: Americans made 1.3 million car trips into Canada in September, up 19.5 percent, though the agency said part of that increase came from Labour Day falling a week later this year.
In other words, Canadians are coming south slightly more than last year, but still far less than before the trade fight. Each missing trip is a shopping run, hotel stay or restaurant meal that Western New York businesses used to count on.
What to watch
Three dates matter. Statistics Canada will release October travel figures on Nov. 12, the first full month after the U.S. import bans. The Buffalo Niagara Partnership will hold its CanAm Connect cross-border forum on Dec. 3. And the 50 percent auto tariff takes effect Jan. 1. It would hit the cross-border auto supply chains that parts makers on both sides of the river rely on.
Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre took his own proposal to Detroit this week. It would tie each automaker’s duty-free access to the number of vehicles it builds in each country, CBC News reported. Neither government has publicly adopted the idea.
For now, Mr. Greer’s message is that the next move is Canada’s.
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