American business owners fear 50% tariffs will force them to abandon Canadian suppliers they call friends

Julia Hallman road-tripped from her home in Massachusetts to a farmstead in Quebec's Compton region last August to spend time with one of her Canadian suppliers — not just a business relationship, but a friendship. She sat on the back porch and watched the grazing cows that would eventually provide milk for one of her shop's best-selling products: the supple Alfred le Fermier cheese, which she sells at Formaggio Kitchen, her specialty cheese and artisan goods shop in Cambridge.

"we want to help support them and get more money into their hands," Hallman said.

But if the Trump administration imposes the threatened 50 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods this week, Hallman and countless other U.S. business owners face a stark choice: break away from longstanding relationships for financial survival, or absorb costs that will eventually become unsustainable.

Imported products from cheeses to chocolates to spices account for roughly half the stock at Formaggio Kitchen, with Canadian goods making up roughly 15 per cent of those imports. Hallman has managed tariffs on Canadian dairy in the past by sacrificing profit margins, raising prices for customers, or both. But a 50 per cent rate would be different.

"There will come a point in time when we do have to make some hard choices," she said. "That's the challenge: we don't want to sacrifice the friendships that we've made. But we also have a threshold of what we can handle as a business and what our customers are willing to pay."

Sarah Paxton, who co-owns a contemporary furniture store in Richmond, Virginia called LaDIFF, shares the worry. Her business has used suppliers in Ontario and Quebec for decades — one of them, Amisco, has even offered to cover tariff costs until a certain date. But that relief is temporary. "We're going to try and continue if we can. Fifty per cent, though, that's a pretty high number," Paxton said. "If you can imagine somebody reaching into your wallet and taking half of what you've got, that would be pretty tough."

Canadian entrepreneurs are equally anxious. If American importers like Hallman and Paxton are forced to source elsewhere, Canadian producers face losing major markets they have supplied for years.

The tariffs are set to hit $28-billion worth of Canadian goods just after midnight Wednesday unless the two governments reach a last-minute deal. Representatives from Canada and the U.S. met Monday for what was expected to be the final ministerial-level meeting before the deadline.