Alberta business leaders describe Trump tariff threat as ‘scary’

Alberta business leaders and politicians say Donald Trump's threat to impose crippling tariff's on all Canadian imports 'makes no sense'.

“Shocking, unexpected and terrified,” is how the CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, Deborah Yedlin, described her reaction to incoming U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to sign an executive order on his first day in office (January 20, 2025) to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all products coming into the U.S. from Canada and Mexico as well as an additional 10 percent tariff on all imports from China.

“It makes no sense,” said Yedlin. “I mean, people were sort of thinking about that 10 per cent number, but 25 per cent just came out of the blue.”

Citing previous modelling by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce on the impact of just a 10 per cent tariff, Yedlin said Canadians “could potentially see a drop in economic growth by 2.5 per cent, which would be felt on average by about $2,000 per household.”

Mitch Jacobsen, whose company makes Rviita Energy Tea at it’s Calgary manufacturing plant described the tariff threat as “really scary, because as a Canadian company exporting to the U.S. we already feel like we are at a disadvantage, our logistics costs are high, we have the carbon tax here, we make everything locally so our expenses are high and if you add 25 percent on top of that it just makes our product uncompetitive.”

“If you’re a dollar or two dollars above the next product in retail, how do you compete,” added Jacobsen.

He described the threat of Canada retaliating as “even scarier.”

“A big piece of our supply chain, being a Canadian company, comes from the U.S. so now we are getting hit on the front end where our cost of goods are going up and then our consumer price point is going to go up too – so we are getting hit on both sides, which is something that’s definitely very scary,” added Jacobsen.

In her reaction to the tariff threat, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said in a social media post that the Trump administration has “valid concerns related to illegal activities” at the border.  But she added a vast majority of Alberta’s energy exports to the U.S. are “delivered through secure and safe pipelines” which “do not in any way contribute to these illegal activities.”