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Canada hit back today against President Trump's latest 50% tariffs. The country is levying its own retaliatory tariffs on about $20 billion worth of U.S. goods. This will affect everything from imports of steel to farm equipment. Farmers in rural border states are worried about their bottom line, as NPR's Kirk Siegler reports from northern Montana.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: It's a two-hour drive north to the province of Alberta from Steve Sheffels' wheat and barley farm outside Great Falls. But you can see evidence of Canadian trade everywhere here, starting with the massive steel shredders attached to the front of his combines for harvesting.
(SOUNDBITE OF COMBINE MACHINE RUNNING)
SIEGLER: They're called headers, and they cut the grain he just finished harvesting.
STEVE SHEFFELS: For us, anyway, these headers are the best ones that we can buy. We think so.
SIEGLER: And they're made in Canada with steel, and they're ideal for this harsh environment, Sheffels says. He says this whole trade tussle feels like a big waste of time.
SHEFFELS: Getting the entire world upset with us. Our trading partners, I mean, can't be happy with what's going on.
SIEGLER: Now farm equipment is subject to a 15% or higher retaliatory tariff. This is just the latest economic stress for grain farmers, who are enduring generally flat commodity prices, the second trade war spanning two Trump administrations, as well as record-high diesel prices and rising fertilizer costs. All of this uncertainty weighs on Sheffels.
SHEFFELS: I'd like to consider buying a new drill, and I'm also looking at grain bins that come out of Canada, and I'm afraid I won't be able to afford them.
SIEGLER: Touching three provinces, Canada is Montana's single largest trading partner, accounting for about a billion in cross-border sales. That's no small number for a state with barely a million people. Lately, farmers have been shipping a lot of barley north to Canadian feed lots, as well as their cattle, which had been a lifeline for the struggling ag economy.
JILLIEN STREIT: It's just sad that food has to be a bargaining chip.
SIEGLER: This is Jillien Streit, director of Montana's Department of Agriculture, who also grows wheat alongside chickpeas and lentils on a family farm and ranch near the border.
STREIT: Canada is a hugely important trade partner because, I mean, I don't know how many times as a farm wife, I'm running up to Lethbridge to get parts. Or especially on the cattle side of things - we send 15% of our herd up north to be fed out.
SIEGLER: Streit thinks farmers will get through this latest trade war by maintaining strong business ties with farmers and companies north of the border that she says are caught in the middle of this escalating trade fight. Montana voted overwhelmingly for Trump, and it's not just farming that's going to be hit. At the Montana World Trade Center in Missoula, Director Brigitta Miranda-Freer is worried. She says America's adversarial tone toward Canada will jeopardize business for small manufacturers here and the vital service and tourism industries.
BRIGITTA MIRANDA-FREER: It doesn't feel right for Montanans (laughter), right? Montanans very much pride themselves on developing business relationships that are authentic and personal.
SIEGLER: For wheat and barley farmer Steve Sheffels, it all feels personal. He says this isn't how you treat friends, let alone one who has been one of the U.S.'s closest allies.
SHEFFELS: They're critical trading partners. My wife is Canadian (laughter). It just - you know, you don't treat your neighbors like this.
SIEGLER: His wife is Canadian - a sign of just how close families and businesses on both sides of the border are interlinked and how tenuous these times feel in the heartland.
Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Great Falls, Montana. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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