Donald Trump’s latest round of steep tariffs on Canadian imports — this time on steel and aluminum — goes into effect at one minute past 10:00 p.m. Calgary time (12:01 eastern time).
Faced with the possibility that their American customers won’t want to pay an extra 25 per centm, steel and metal manufacturers in Alberta are scrambling to complete their orders before the new tariffs kick in.
“We are rushing stuff out the door right now to get across the border, and hopefully they make it before midnight,” said Chad Spicer, owner of All Metal Manufacturing in Calgary. Any delay could mean lost business.
“It makes it difficult for companies to ship because the people receiving it don’t want to pay the extra money, so sometimes they turn it around,” added Spicer. “They get to the border and they stop them there — and then they turn around and we just sit on it.”
Calgary’s All Metal Manufacturing, like many Canadian metal manufacturers was scrambling on Wednesday to get orders from American customers sent across the border before the latest round of Trump’s tariffs go into effect.
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Canada’s craft brewing industry is also bracing for the impact of the new tariffs, which will increase the cost of aluminum cans.
“A four-pack of tall boys means craft beer to most people, so it’s hard to break away from that,” said Brandon Hart, owner The Establishment Brewing Company in Calgary.
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Although Canada is one of the world’s largest producers of raw aluminum, in the case of most cans, the raw material is exported to the U.S. where it is rolled into the thin aluminum sheets that are needed to produce the tall boy cans. The finished cans are then shipped back across the border to Canadian customers.
That means the cans may be subject to hefty tariffs twice.
In anticipation of the tariffs, The Establishment has stocked up on cans. Its warehouse is now jammed to the ceiling with about 300,000 cans.
“We kinda got what we could, but our space is limited so it will give us cans for three to four or five months of production, depending on how things go and what brands sell,” said Hart.
“But yeah, it’s not going to last forever. It’s just to put off any eventual impacts.”
Brandon Hart, owner of The Establishment Brewing Company in Calgary has stockpiled 300,000 aluminum cans, enough to avoid several months of Trump’s new tariffs.
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Hops is another key ingredient that the brewery needs to purchase mostly from outside of Alberta — from B.C., Europe, New Zealand, Australia or the U.S.
“We are also bringing all of our hops in for the year, so that we can have a little bit of predictability over the short term,” said Hart. “But the long term is a complete unknown.”
While the Trump administration has claimed the tariffs are needed to “put an end to foreign dumping, boost domestic production and secure our steel and aluminum industries as the backbone and pillar industries of America’s economic and national security,” Chad Spicer doesn’t think it’s realistic.
“I don’t think the U.S. can get up to speed in the four years that Trump will be in to make up for it — there’s just there’s no value for them. Their product from Canada is affordable. It’s a good product; we try to sell it at a good price,” said Spicer.
“I don’t think the cost for them to ramp up to compete with some of the Canadian companies is affordable to them.”
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