MOOSOMIN — There’s been much speculation on how tariffs from the United States will impact Saskatchewan. Locally, businesses have been preparing for the effects of tariffs.
Stan Langley runs Universe Satellite Sales in Rocanville. The threatened action from the States, which came to be on Tuesday morning, prompted his business to stock their inventory a little earlier than usual.
“We order the parts anyhow every year to have for fall and during the winter, so we’re just doing it a little earlier,” he says. “We’re not getting the huge discounts that we would normally do in a booking time. We’re gambling, but we’re going to have the parts. We might have three months of inventory where we would only have one month of inventory, but you’re just going to have inventory a little longer.”
Langley doesn’t see anyone benefitting from the proposed tariffs — except for those in the upper echelons of government.
“It’s going to cost everybody a lot of money,” he said. “It’s a tax that goes on to the people, so it’s going to make the governments rich and going to make us poorer. Everything is priced high now, and if you put 25 per cent tariff on stuff, then it’s out of reach. So it’s just going to stall absolutely everything.”
Relations between Canada and the United States account for $1 trillion in trade annually, with an estimated $3.6 billion worth of goods going back and forth.
“Overall, I think a trade war with the U.S. is a fight that we’re probably going to lose,” said Tyler Thorn, owner of Celebration Ford in Moosomin and president of the Community Builders Alliance. “I just think the U.S. is too big and too dominant that if we get into a serious trade war there, it’s not going to be good for the Canadian economy in general. Certainly, it’s going to be tough on the Saskatchewan economy because we’re so export-based.”
Vehicles are the second largest Canadian export by value, with 2023 numbers showing $51 billion of which 93 per cent were exported across the border to the U.S. With that highly-integrated nature of the auto industry, parts used in building those vehicles, no matter the origin, might cross Canada, the U.S. and Mexican borders up to eight times before final assembly.
“It’s very complex, I think, in the automotive manufacturing industry on how the tariffs will impact it,” Thorn said. “Certainly, that will drive up the price of the cars; the cost to produce will then be higher due to the tariffs and then the finished product.”
Thorn foresees retaliatory tariffs on automobiles coming, perhaps not in the first wave, but likely the second round.
“You don’t have to be a mathematician to realize that if we add 25 per cent to the price of a vehicle coming onto our lot, it’s going to be a little tougher to sell that car,” he said.
As for how the proposed tariffs might affect the local economy in Moosomin, Thorn hopes the strong sense of community pride and desire to shop local continues.
“The consumers in our region are fairly cognizant of shopping local and how important that is,” he said. “Hopefully, people realize and remember that those small businesses are the ones that are creating the jobs and providing the services and are the ones supporting all of our hockey tournaments and our recreation facilities and our music festivals. It’s all those small businesses that are writing the cheques to sponsor those events and help make sure they happen, and to me, it’s really important that local consumers think about that aspect of it when making shopping decisions.
“Without those small businesses supporting those events and those fundraisers and those projects, they don’t happen,” Thorn continued. “Or if they do happen, the cost to the people involved in it goes up without the businesses sponsoring. Hopefully, people consider that when making their decisions, but it’s going to be a challenging time for everybody.”
At Rocky Mountain Equipment, parts and sales manager Tyler Jones summed up the sentiment as “wait and see.” With a busy seeding season not too far off, Jones pointed toward local manufacturers as the answer.
“The good thing is most of the seeding equipment around here is made in Canada anyway, so it shouldn’t affect us with both Bourgault and Väderstad,” he said. “We did do an order back in January, so I don’t think we’re too worried about that.”
In terms of back-ordered parts, Jones noted if the tariff situation continues more long-term, it could be an issue.
“COVID, I think, was a bigger deal for back orders,” he said. “We’re in a ‘wait and see’ mode."
