In Washington D.C., Coun. Tim Tierney made clear the costs to American municipalities of tariffs to U.S. mayors.
Hoping to impress upon U.S. leaders how their cities could suffer under a protracted trade war, Ottawa city Coun. Tim Tierney was in Washington D.C. earlier this week as a part of a delegation of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
Tierney, who is also vice-president of the organization, presented at a conference hosted by the National League of Cities, a group that represents over 2,700 U.S. municipalities, as strains in the U.S.-Canada relationship deepen.
“They didn’t know the level of detail but we presented straight, black and white data on that,” he said. “These policy changes are really hurting, directly at home.”
Tariffs will lead to higher costs for Canadian steel, lumber and aluminum, all of which stand to increase expenses for big-ticket municipal projects like road repair, wastewater systems and public buildings.
Similarly, the uncertainty spurred by the roller-coaster ride of tariffs being threatened, levied, doubled or delayed — sometimes over the course of a single day — has made financial markets, investors and the average Joe alike hesitant to invest.
“They’re very concerned about the Dow or markets. Nobody will invest in building anything if they don’t know what’s happening,” Tierney said. “A bank won’t give a city or municipality money for infrastructure projects if you don’t even know what’s happening, funding-wise, for those municipalities.”
Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on billions of dollars in Canadian goods, only to remove them days later, threatening to re-impose them a month later. This week, a 25 per cent tariff on steel and aluminum imports came into effect. The next day, Canada struck back with nearly $30 billion in counter-tariffs against U.S. goods.
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The trade war stands to affect virtually every aspect of both nations’ economies, from tourism to agriculture to auto manufacturing, as the U.S. relies on many of Canada’s raw materials to make its own products. Canada, similarly, buys more goods from the U.S. than China, Japan, France and the U.K. combined.
Tierney’s presentation showed the tariffs will be felt on both sides of the border, citing local microbreweries as one business that will be hindered by increased steel and aluminum costs.
In Tierney’s Beacon Hill-Cyrville ward, a manufacturer makes sensors for U.S. F-35 military jets, which are also set to be tariffed.
Tierney said some American mayors didn’t fully understand how the trade war would hit their cities, but he presented personalized packages that showed the direct impact on their communities. One such example was empty liquor store shelves after the LCBO, once the largest purchaser of Kentucky-made bourbon, pulled U.S. alcohol from its stores.
“It sounds minor, but it is a big deal,” he said. “They don’t see that imagery down there. They got their backs up, and they’re angry at their government.”
Not only that, but a trade war stands to hit their constituents’ pockets, with prices on everything from houses to beer increasing, something that even Republican leaders are seeing as a tax on their constituents.
Tierney said he spoke to mayors in the U.S. Rust Belt who are already seeing hundreds of layoffs in the auto manufacturing sector, with rumblings of a “Trump-cession.”
“The problem is they can’t keep people on staff if they don’t know if there’s going to be a production run, if there’s going to be tariffs on power, or worst case, the power shutting off,” Tierney said. “they’re worried about that, and it’s impacting them literally right now on the ground.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford had previously imposed a 25 per cent surcharge on exports of electricity to Michigan, New York and Minnesota, threatening to turn off electricity entirely if the tariffs on Canadian goods continued. The premier suspended the levy after he said Howard Lutnick, the U.S. secretary of commerce, extended an “olive branch” amid escalating tensions.
Vice President J.D. Vance spoke at the conference, too, accusing Canadians and Mexicans of “taking homes away from Americans who have birthright,” Tierney said. “And we know that’s not true.”
The rhetoric from the White House in justifying the trade war has been scattershot, with Trump accusing Canada of having weak border protection and allowing fentanyl to flow into its southern neighbour. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said the aim of the trade war is to weaken Canada’s economy, in order to make it easier to annex as the U.S.’s 51st state.
“In all my conversations I reiterated, we’re going to allow the bluster to take place at the federal level, or higher levels of government,” Tierney said. “They can do that. We’re here to get the job done.”
