The phone keeps ringing at Orchid Greens. Guann Chen answers each call knowing the news on the other end could be another cancelled order, another shipment turned away, another piece of his life’s work wilting under the weight of a 50 per cent U.S. tariff.
From Ontario greenhouses to Vermont cheese cellars, from Vancouver electronics distributors to Montreal textile workshops, business owners on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border are running out of road. Nearly 18 months into the trade war ignited by President Donald Trump, the latest punitive measures, announced in August and now in force, have pushed exporters to a breaking point that spreadsheets and economic forecasts can barely capture.
The list of affected goods is long and punishing. Cosmetics, toiletries, packaging, electrical components, chemicals, clothing and cut flowers are among the Canadian products now subject to a 50 per cent levy as of August 22. “Those facing these higher tariffs are going to be affected a lot,” warned Mark Parsons, vice-president and chief economist at ATB Financial. “They’re punishingly high, and some of the companies have very few options as to where they can sell their products. It’s not like they can easily substitute into the Canadian market or overseas. That takes time.”
A Deal That Wasn’t
Negotiations between Ottawa and Washington had, briefly, offered a flicker of hope. On August 18, lead negotiators on both sides announced a tentative agreement, prompting the Trump administration to delay implementation of the 50 per cent tariffs by three days from the original August 19 deadline. The $28-billion worth of Canadian goods caught in the crosshairs would get a brief reprieve while the finer details were ironed out.
That reprieve lasted less than 72 hours.
Prime Minister Mark Carney pulled Canada out of the deal at the eleventh hour, declaring publicly that “it was a bad deal.” At a press conference in Quebec on Monday, Carney drew a firm line: “An attitude at the negotiation table that Canada is a subsidiary of the United States… that’s not something we’re going to accept.” The ball is now firmly in Washington’s court. Canada has no plans to return to the table until the U.S. changes its approach.
On September 8, Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on $27.6 billion worth of U.S. imports are scheduled to take effect, compounding the existing duties on Canadian steel and aluminium already locked in by the Trump administration.
The Orchid Grower Who Can’t Stop the Cycle
In the Niagara region of Ontario, Guann Chen tends to roughly 350,000 square feet of greenhouse space during peak season. His orchids, some 40 per cent of which are bound for American buyers, have become collateral damage in a trade dispute whose logic escapes him.
The 50 per cent tariff applies to roughly $210 million worth of Canadian flower exports, according to Flowers Canada Growers, the national trade association for the floral industry. Chen has been forced to sell some of his plants practically at a loss. He has no alternative. Orchids are perishable. The plants never stop growing. The cycle must continue, even if it bleeds the company dry.
“For us to be able to survive this, with a 50 per cent tariff, is unlikely if it’s long term,” Chen said. “These are plants. These are not dry goods. They’re perishable goods. The plants will never stop growing, so we have to keep the cycle going. Which is why, even if selling at a loss is not in anyone’s favour, we have to do it. Otherwise, it just all goes to the garbage.”
His company has raised prices for American clients but is absorbing roughly half the cost of the new tariffs itself. A few customers have already cancelled outright.
“I don’t know why orchids would be part of [the trade war]. Flowers in general. It’s such a small industry that is just bringing pleasure to people, bringing happiness to people’s homes.”
An Electronics Distributor Turns Away
In Vancouver, Raymond Wong has been selling electronic components to Canadian manufacturers, schools and governments for more than three decades. Before the trade war, roughly 10 to 15 per cent of Lee’s Electronic Components’ business crossed the border into the United States. That figure has since collapsed.
Some of the products Wong distributes are now subject to the August 50 per cent tariff. Others, he suspects, will follow. The economics no longer make sense. American customers are balking at brokerage fees and shipping costs that can sometimes exceed the price of the component itself. “Hey, I’m buying a $5 product or $10 product, and I’m paying $15 in brokerage and $20 in shipping,” Wong recounted customers telling him. “So, then they’re going to try to find it somewhere else or find the same product in the U.S.”
His company is now actively seeking partners overseas rather than chasing a U.S. market that has become more trouble than it is worth. There is, however, one bright spot. “To my benefit, there are more customers that are local saying, ‘Hey, I’d rather buy from you than order from the U.S.’ So that’s a good thing.”
A Vermont Cheesemaker Shut Out of Montreal
Three hundred miles south, in the hills of Greensboro, Vermont, Zoe Brickley is marketing director at Jasper Hill Farm, a 75-employee operation celebrated for its spruce bark-wrapped cheeses. Before the trade war, the farm was building momentum toward $250,000 in Canadian sales. The closest major city, Montreal, is just two hours north.
That market is now closed, and not because of any tariff Jasper Hill imposed. A 25 per cent Canadian duty on American cheese imports is coming down the pipe, and anti-American sentiment among Canadian consumers has hardened into a meaningful commercial force.
“I think there’s some narrative out there that would say if we’re taxing imports, then American cheeses would be more competitive in our market. And the reality is that all of our suppliers have their businesses disrupted, costs are going up, they’re raising prices across the board to help absorb different tariffs,” Brickley explained.
The farm’s own input costs are climbing. Its equipment is European. Its cardboard packaging comes from Canadian forestry. “All of our inputs going up.”
“We don’t have any hope in being able to build sales until there’s a whole new set of policies in place. Basically, we’re not going to invest any time or money in the Canadian market for the foreseeable future.”
The Toolmaker Who Refuses to Surrender
Chris Vander Park, international business development manager at Cavalier Tool and Manufacturing, speaks with the measured urgency of a man fighting a war on multiple fronts. The Windsor, Ontario-based injection moulding company, founded in 1975, operates three plants and generates over $100 million in annual revenue. Between 85 and 90 per cent of that business flows across the Detroit River into the United States.
Cavalier has been absorbing blows since the trade war began in early 2025. Targeted steel tariffs have done significant damage. The cumulative uncertainty is, in some ways, worse. “When you don’t know the rules and you don’t know what you’re up against, and I can’t give my customer a specific answer as to what his final price looks like, because when we ship it, it’s going to be on him. We can’t pay the tariffs. We do over $100 million in business. That’s $15 million off our bottom line. I can’t give away $15 million. We don’t have it.”
Vander Park’s sales team fields calls daily from American customers who are simply refusing to place new work in Canada until the picture clarifies. Some have already diverted orders elsewhere.
Still, Cavalier is digging in. New equipment, new software, new automation: the company is investing where it can. “We try to reinvent ourselves every day. We’re not planning on going out of business. Absolutely not.”
A Montreal Textile Mill on the Brink
Lila Rousselet founded Montloup Textiles in 2018 to do something almost countercultural: produce eco-friendly knit fabrics in Quebec for Canadian fashion brands. Before the trade war, roughly 15 per cent of her output flowed south of the border. She stopped selling directly to U.S. clients last year. But her Canadian customers still manufacture garments that end up in American stores, and those finished goods will be caught in the latest round of duties.
She anticipates a sharp drop in orders, a downstream consequence she cannot control. “My clients are going to lose sales, and if they lose sales, they will produce less and buy less. I don’t think these businesses are going to be able to accommodate the tariffs. There’s not really anything I can do. I can keep my prices at the same point, but I also don’t make wide margins — I can’t help them.”
Rousselet is now trying to find new Canadian customers to fill the gap. Her model relies on small pre-sales, with minimum orders of 50 metres per roll. “I hope I’m going to get more business, but in the meantime, it’s hard for everyone.”
The Quebec textile industry once transformed rural settlements into bustling mill towns. Today, it is a shadow of its former self, hollowed out by overseas competition and the retirement of founders with no heirs to take over. Since Rousselet entered the business, three major domestic players have already shut their doors. “I’m afraid this is another hurdle on top of that. It’s a historic industry and this is putting that at risk.”
Why it Matters
Behind every tariff line item and every retaliatory measure sits a human being making impossible calculations: which orders to cancel, which workers to furlough, which markets to abandon, which long-held dreams to quietly shelve. The August escalation, a 50 per cent wall built overnight around goods as varied as orchids and circuit boards, has not merely reshaped the economics of North American trade. It has drained something less measurable from the entrepreneurs who carry it. The uncertainty itself, economists note, is a tax on hiring and investment, levied every time a business owner puts off a decision because the rules might change again tomorrow. Until Washington and Ottawa find a way back to genuine negotiation, that fatigue will keep compounding, one cancelled order, one withered plant, one closed market at a time.
