A Chatham-Kent councillor is hopeful a recent visit to Washington, D.C. will help convince U.S. lawmakers that a trade war with Canada will cause harm on both sides of the border.
Ward 6 Councillor Alysson Storey recently returned from the National Association of Counties (NACo) Legislative Conference as one of six members of a Federation of Canadian Municipalities delegation.
The conference took place on March 1-4 and brought together nearly 2,000 elected and appointed county officials to focus on federal policy issues that impact counties and residents.
Storey said the Canadian delegation made presentations, participated in discussion panels and had several closed-door meetings with American politicians to discuss the U.S.-imposed tariffs on Canadian goods and services.
“We brought forward a lot of data. We have a lot of data that drills right down to the district level in each state,” said Storey. “We wanted them to know what a critical role that Canada plays in their own local economy.”
It was noted during the conference that Canada is currently the primary trading partner for 36-38 states in the U.S.
“The further you get away from the northern border, often folks were not as aware of important trade relationship their states and their communities have with Canada,” said Storey. “That was very useful to provide them with that data. Once they learned that, they were often quite concerned.”
U.S. President Donald Trump followed through on a threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods, which came into effect on Tuesday. The Government of Canada has already responded by imposing its own 25 per cent tariffs on $30 billion in goods imported from the United States.
“We have multiple folks that we’ve talked to, multiple government officials from different states across the country already reach out to their state congress men and women and state senators, their counterparts in other communities to tell them, ‘don’t do this,'” said Storey.
On Wednesday, Trump announced the U.S. government would exempt General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis from the tariffs for 30 days after speaking with the leaders of the big three automakers.
According to Storey, members of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities are currently formulating a plan for further discussions with their American counterparts
“We will be following up one-on-one with all of the people we connected with [during the conference],” she said. “That’s the key, making sure we’re still communicating, we’re still sharing that information, and sharing those concerns.”
“Depending on how these tariffs go, we will be adapting our messaging and our discussion topics as needed,” said Storey.
In the meantime, Chatham-Kent Mayor Darrin Canniff has called a special meeting of council for Thursday to discuss what the municipality and its citizens can do to mitigate the impact of the trade war. The meeting will be held in Chatham-Kent Council Chambers at 5 p.m. and will be live-streamed through YourTV Chatham-Kent’s YouTube channel.
