{"id":196551,"date":"2026-09-04T22:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T22:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/196551\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T22:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T22:04:09","slug":"trumps-tariff-war-with-canada-adds-uncertainty-for-alaska-businesses-already-grappling-with-higher-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/196551\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s tariff war with Canada adds uncertainty for Alaska businesses already grappling with higher prices"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Road signs near the United States-Canada border in Alaska in 2015. (Loren Holmes \/ ADN archive) <\/p>\n

Alaska business owners have already been stung by higher prices from President Donald Trump\u2019s global trade war. <\/p>\n

Now they\u2019re 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. <\/p>\n

An Alaska trade observer said this week that Alaska businesses are especially vulnerable, since Canada is one of Alaska\u2019s top trading partners<\/a>. The state imports more than $1 billion in goods annually<\/a> and exports more than $600 million to the country. <\/p>\n

The United States\u2019 latest 50% tariff on Canadian goods is \u201cabsolutely crazy,\u201d said Don Bruno, who owns the Play It Again Sports stores in Spenard and Wasilla. <\/p>\n

\u201cFifty percent is a lot. It\u2019s not something that I can pass on to my customers,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The additional tariff rate pushes every dollar he planned to spend on a Canadian product to $1.50. <\/p>\n

He recently decided not to buy hockey pucks from a Canadian manufacturer that he\u2019s used in the past. Instead, he\u2019ll look to buy them from other countries. <\/p>\n

He said the sporting goods store has already been dealing with higher costs from tariffs over the last year and a half. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe tariffs are hitting us,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s from hockey jerseys to everything.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cPrices are going up, and I eat them when I can, but there\u2019s times that you have to raise prices,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\"\"Sam Skolnick stocks ski boots in October 2021 at Play It Again Sports in Anchorage. (Loren Holmes \/ ADN archive) <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe relationship is one of mutual benefit, and it\u2019s sort of difficult to watch this trade war unfold,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Last month, Trump imposed 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian imports<\/a>, including alcoholic beverages, building materials and dairy products. He argues that Canada employs discriminatory trade practices that favor other countries\u2019 products. <\/p>\n

Those new tariffs, on around $20 billion of Canadian items, come atop the president\u2019s 10% base rate on Canada and other countries, Wolf said.<\/p>\n

That 10% rate itself is lower than the U.S.\u2019s 28% average tariff rate peak reached<\/a> last year under Trump. The lower base rate comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year <\/a>that the president\u2019s previous justification for his global trade war, the emergency powers law, was unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

Trump has claimed that his tariffs are paid by foreign countries. In fact, they\u2019re paid by U.S. businesses that import products and ultimately the consumers, Wolf said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically a national sales tax on the American people,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The tariffs are a factor <\/a>in the U.S.\u2019s high inflation rate that has the personal consumption index at 3.7%, nearly double<\/a> the Federal Reserve Bank\u2019s 2% long-term target. <\/a><\/p>\n

Canada last month fired back against Trump, and said it\u2019s slapping retaliatory tariffs of up to 50% on a long list<\/a> of U.S. products. Those tariffs start Tuesday, and include dairy and manufactured products made with steel and aluminum. <\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Trump has argued that his tariffs encourage American companies to manufacture their goods in the U.S. and create jobs. But Wolf said it\u2019s unknown whether the tariff policy \u201cis a net positive or a net negative for the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201dThis is all unchartered territory,” he said. <\/p>\n

One area to watch in Alaska is the cost of building materials for home and building construction, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the construction materials that are used in Alaska come directly from Canada,\u201d Wolf said. <\/p>\n

\"\"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) <\/p>\n

Alaska Gear Company, which manufactures items such as airplane gear and cold-weather bunny boots, has already been caught<\/a> in the crossfire of Trump\u2019s earlier trade war with Canada in 2025. <\/p>\n

\u201cCanada is a very important market for us. We just say, \u2018Don\u2019t blame us. We like you,\u2019 \u201d the company\u2019s chief executive, Sean McLaughlin, said in a text message this week. <\/p>\n

McLaughlin said it\u2019s virtually pointless to look and see what specific items are impacted this time. The tariffs are a \u201cmoving target\u201d that create uncertainty for business owners for no reason, while the tariffs \u201ccould and will all change again,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhole thing is a waste of time and energy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Janet Gregory, owner of Over the Rainbow Toys in South Anchorage, said she\u2019s also not looking to see the specific impacts. <\/p>\n

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

There are too many variables about what products might be affected, and whether Trump\u2019s latest round of tariffs will pass legal muster this time. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf my vendors pass on costs, then they\u2019ll pass on the costs,\u201d she said. \u201cI haven\u2019t heard anything specific from any vendors planning to do that. But I mean, there are a lot of moving parts.\u201d <\/p>\n

When prices rise because of the tariffs, Gregory tries to absorb part of the cost herself.<\/p>\n

But she raises prices when she thinks it\u2019s within customer budgets. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just figure it\u2019s going to be what it\u2019s going to be, and there\u2019s not much I can do about it,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Road signs near the United States-Canada border in Alaska in 2015. (Loren Holmes \/ ADN archive) Alaska business…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61529,61530,17,248],"class_list":["post-196551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alaska-highway","tag-alcan","tag-canada","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}