Road signs near the United States-Canada border in Alaska in 2015. (Loren Holmes / ADN archive)

Alaska business owners have already been stung by higher prices from President Donald Trump’s global trade war.

Now they’re facing more uncertainty and potentially higher costs, with the U.S and Canada engaged in another trade conflict that includes 50% tariffs on several products traded between the countries.

An Alaska trade observer said this week that Alaska businesses are especially vulnerable, since Canada is one of Alaska’s top trading partners. The state imports more than $1 billion in goods annually and exports more than $600 million to the country.

The United States’ latest 50% tariff on Canadian goods is “absolutely crazy,” said Don Bruno, who owns the Play It Again Sports stores in Spenard and Wasilla.

“Fifty percent is a lot. It’s not something that I can pass on to my customers,” he said.

The additional tariff rate pushes every dollar he planned to spend on a Canadian product to $1.50.

He recently decided not to buy hockey pucks from a Canadian manufacturer that he’s used in the past. Instead, he’ll look to buy them from other countries.

He said the sporting goods store has already been dealing with higher costs from tariffs over the last year and a half.

“The tariffs are hitting us,” he said. “I mean, it’s from hockey jerseys to everything.”

“Prices are going up, and I eat them when I can, but there’s times that you have to raise prices,” he said.

Sam Skolnick stocks ski boots in October 2021 at Play It Again Sports in Anchorage. (Loren Holmes / ADN archive)

Trump’s trade fight with Canada could be especially challenging in Alaska, with the two sides sharing 1,500 border miles and positive economic ties, said Greg Wolf, head of the Alaska International Business Center.

“The relationship is one of mutual benefit, and it’s sort of difficult to watch this trade war unfold,” he said.

Last month, Trump imposed 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian imports, including alcoholic beverages, building materials and dairy products. He argues that Canada employs discriminatory trade practices that favor other countries’ products.

Those new tariffs, on around $20 billion of Canadian items, come atop the president’s 10% base rate on Canada and other countries, Wolf said.

That 10% rate itself is lower than the U.S.’s 28% average tariff rate peak reached last year under Trump. The lower base rate comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that the president’s previous justification for his global trade war, the emergency powers law, was unconstitutional.

Trump has claimed that his tariffs are paid by foreign countries. In fact, they’re paid by U.S. businesses that import products and ultimately the consumers, Wolf said.

“It’s basically a national sales tax on the American people,” he said.

The tariffs are a factor in the U.S.’s high inflation rate that has the personal consumption index at 3.7%, nearly double the Federal Reserve Bank’s 2% long-term target.

Canada last month fired back against Trump, and said it’s slapping retaliatory tariffs of up to 50% on a long list of U.S. products. Those tariffs start Tuesday, and include dairy and manufactured products made with steel and aluminum.

Canada’s tariffs could also hurt Alaska and U.S. companies that export products into Canada, making their items more expensive compared to those from other countries, Wolf said.

Trump has argued that his tariffs encourage American companies to manufacture their goods in the U.S. and create jobs. But Wolf said it’s unknown whether the tariff policy “is a net positive or a net negative for the United States.”

”This is all unchartered territory,” he said.

One area to watch in Alaska is the cost of building materials for home and building construction, he said.

“A lot of the construction materials that are used in Alaska come directly from Canada,” Wolf said.

Sean McLaughlin, an owner of Alaska Gear Company, looks at bunny boots that the company was set to distribute to testers. Photographed in 2024. (Marc Lester / ADN archive)

Alaska Gear Company, which manufactures items such as airplane gear and cold-weather bunny boots, has already been caught in the crossfire of Trump’s earlier trade war with Canada in 2025.

“Canada is a very important market for us. We just say, ‘Don’t blame us. We like you,’ ” the company’s chief executive, Sean McLaughlin, said in a text message this week.

McLaughlin said it’s virtually pointless to look and see what specific items are impacted this time. The tariffs are a “moving target” that create uncertainty for business owners for no reason, while the tariffs “could and will all change again,” he said.

“Whole thing is a waste of time and energy,” he said.

Janet Gregory, owner of Over the Rainbow Toys in South Anchorage, said she’s also not looking to see the specific impacts.

Over The Rainbow Toys owner Janet Gregory photographed in her South Anchorage store on Jan. 8, 2026. (Bill Roth / ADN archive)

There are too many variables about what products might be affected, and whether Trump’s latest round of tariffs will pass legal muster this time.

“If my vendors pass on costs, then they’ll pass on the costs,” she said. “I haven’t heard anything specific from any vendors planning to do that. But I mean, there are a lot of moving parts.”

When prices rise because of the tariffs, Gregory tries to absorb part of the cost herself.

But she raises prices when she thinks it’s within customer budgets.

“I just figure it’s going to be what it’s going to be, and there’s not much I can do about it,” she said.