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New York farms and factories left scrambling amid uncertainty around Trump tariffs
By
Jimmy Vielkind
Published Mar 7, 2025
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Jimmy Vielkind
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Jimmy Vielkind
Published Mar 7, 2025
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Business leaders in upstate New York say they are bracing for the effects of new tariffs on Canadian products – and they warn that prices will rise if the tariffs actually materialize.
Factories would face higher costs for goods like aluminum and wood pulp. Fuel, natural gas and electricity that flow over the borders with Quebec and Ontario would become more expensive. Farmers would pay more for fertilizer, government and business leaders said.
While Trump’s position remains in flux this week, factories and farms upstate say they have to prepare for the worst.
Garry Douglas, president and CEO of the North Country Chamber of Commerce, said 20% of workers in Plattsburgh and its surrounding county are either employed by Canadian companies or rely on cross-border trade.
“One of the great advantages the U.S. has had from free trade with Canada, and in integration of our two economies, has been making end-products less costly on the global market,” he said. “It's gonna be awfully hard to divorce that.”
New York state firms import almost $23 billion worth of goods from Canada each year, according to the Canadian government – and trade supports an estimated 520,000 jobs in the Empire State.
President Donald Trump announced Monday he would place 25% tariffs on all goods from Canada and Mexico and also doubled the levy on goods from China to 20%. After stock markets dropped and other countries began to retaliate, Trump on Thursday announced he was postponing tariffs on Canada and Mexico until April 2.
Earlier in the week, he made his case for the new levies during a speech to Congress.
“If you don't make your product in America, however, under the Trump administration, you'll pay a tariff, and in some cases a rather large one,” the Republican president said. “Other countries have used tariffs against us for decades, and now it's our turn to start using them against those other countries.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul said tariffs amounted to a tax that she estimated would cost families more than $1,000 a year. The Democratic governor convened a roundtable with agricultural leaders on Tuesday.
Many farm supplies – including wood chips and the common fertilizer, potash – come from north of the border, Hochul said.
”This is a real, real hit on our families at a time when we were promised affordability,” she said.
One of the people who met with Hochul was Kevin Ellis, chief executive of the Upstate Niagara Cooperative, a consortium of dairy farmers that runs its own processing facilities. Ellis said some of the supplies used to make cheese and ice cream are imported, and “increased costs to procure these critical supplies, as well as any retaliatory tariffs on our exported dairy products, will inevitably result in a negative financial impact to our cooperative farmer-owners.”
Canadian officials responded by slapping new levies on around $100 billion of U.S. goods. Tom Clark, the Canadian consul general in New York, traveled to Albany last month and warned state lawmakers that the energy sector would experience some of the first impacts of any trade war.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford threatened to add a 25% surcharge on electricity exported from his province into New York, Michigan and Minnesota starting next week.
“Honestly, it really bothers me we have to do this,” Ford said on CNN. He said Trump was causing “mass chaos” with his tariffs.
New York used around 4,000 gigawatt hours of power – about a quarter of what’s produced annually by the Hoover Dam – in 2023, according to the New York Independent System Operator, which oversees the state’s electric grid. Officials are in touch with their Canadian counterparts and NYISO “anticipates having adequate supplies to meet expected demand on the system,” according to spokesperson Kevin Lanahan.
Precision Valve & Automation CEO Tony Hynes said tariffs would drive up costs and make it harder for his business to compete in the international market.
Jimmy Vielkind
Businesses in the Empire State imported around $1.5 billion worth of aluminum products from Canada in 2023, according to Canadian statistics. They’re used by all sorts of manufacturers around the state, including Precision Valve & Automation in Saratoga County.
Company President Tony Hynes said PVA annually buys roughly $700,000 worth of steel and aluminum – most of which originates in Canada. He predicted the tariffs would increase costs and make the firm less competitive.
He was also wary of retaliation. PVA makes machines that spray adhesives and other liquids onto products moving down an assembly line. His customers are factories around the world making everything from electronics to aircraft, and the main factory floor is ringed with the flags of Mexico, Canada, Ireland, Germany and other nations.
PVA does all its own production in New York and employs more than 200 people. He said the uncertainty around tariffs will make it harder to do business.
”It seems quite chaotic,” he said. “People like me now are spending an inordinate amount of time trying to figure it all out. I'm not concentrating on sales. I'm not concentrating on how to make a better work environment for my employees. I'm just concentrating on the whiplash, the daily whiplash of what tariffs are and how they're going to affect me.”
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Politics
Jimmy Vielkind
Jimmy Vielkind covers how state government and politics affect people throughout New York. He has covered Albany since 2008, most recently as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Jimmy led a team of reporters that won a New York Press Club award for coverage of Andrew Cuomo’s downfall and was on a team that won a Gerald Loeb Award for coverage of Amazon’s HQ2 process. A native of the Capitol Region, Jimmy has two degrees in urban planning. His position is funded by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Reach Jimmy at [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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