Local businesses say effects of U.S. tariffs not as big as expected
July 7, 2025, 10:20 am
Ryan Kiedrowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Back in early March, businesses were bracing for the impact of tariffs coming from the United States, concerned about the impact they would have on the Canadian economy. But today, local business are saying the impacts of the tariffs have been minimal.
“It hasn’t really had a big impact on our business as of yet,” said Tyler Thorn, owner of Celebration Ford in Moosomin. “The number one focus is the impact they’re going to have on new vehicle prices.”
Easing off on triggering a trade war has bolstered relations between Canada and the U.S.
“I think Trump kind of softened a bit on the auto sector as far as the tariffs back and forth, which softened our government’s response with not imposing any retaliatory tariffs on new vehicle imports,” says Thorn.
Thorn noted seeing a mid-year price increase of one to two per cent, but he states that is “pretty common even in a non-tariff environment. If anything, I think it has probably had a positive impact on sales as I think the market maybe pulled some people ahead where they wanted to buy a new car. Maybe they weren’t quite ready, but they wanted to buy a car before there was an increase in price due to tariffs. We’ve seen a lot of traffic in the showroom, and sales have been really good.”
That’s not to say uncertainty has vanished in the greater business community, as Thorn noted some may be exercising added caution through these current times.
“Businesses tend to maybe back off on making investments until things sort of stabilize,” he said, adding that building expansions might be placed on pause, for example. “There’s a lot of unknowns and you’re going to wait for things to calm down before you make those big decisions.”
Sales up in spite of tariffs
Stan Langley, owner of Universe Satellite Sales in Rocanville, says tariffs are having some events on his vehicle lines.
“There is one unit in the Kawasaki line that they’re not shipping to Canada now because of the 25 per cent tariff, and our Mahinda Roxors that we’ve been putting underground and selling to a lot of the cattle people, they put a 25 per cent tariff on them so it makes them unaffordable—we just can’t bring them in,” he said. “I guess the good thing about it is there are some in Canada at other dealerships that we can probably draw from, the ones that maybe haven’t been selling as good in some areas we can draw from them. Hopefully they get a handle on these tariffs.”
Prior to the initial March 4 date when tariffs were supposed to be imposed, Langley noted his business stocked their parts inventory a bit earlier than usual in an effort to avoid whatever increases might occur.
“We haven’t seen tariffs on, really, any parts—it’s just on the big goods so far that we’ve seen,” he said. “I think that the big ticket items are where people are going to notice it.”
“You add a 25 per cent tariff on to a banana, no one talks about 25 cents until you add all them 25 cents up for a string of bananas. I’m just hoping that they get this straightened out pretty quick because I think it’s going to cause more problems in the United States than it is in our country,” he adds.
Despite all the uncertainty, Langley is pleased with sales.
“This has been our biggest year ever,” he said. “Our year end just happened, our sales have been higher this year than we’ve ever had them. But we’ve diversified into a lot of different things—we’re to the point you can’t diversify into anything more. You stay the size you are, and hopefully you can maintain what you’re doing, or somewhere close to that.”
Where the challenge lies is in people and the ability to attract talent.
“We don’t have enough people to work,” Langley said. “We need mechanics, and mechanics are in very short supply. It’s hard to compete with the mines, with the benefits and the high pay and stuff like that for a small business. You got to find the person who doesn’t want to work underground, or doesn’t work in the mill, but it’s tough. I was just at an economic development meeting in Moosomin this morning and it’s the same problem everywhere. People are saying there’s a shortage of skilled trades.”
Ultimately, the uncertainty continues as world leaders continue to meet.
“I’m not making any big plans even if they sign a deal because Trump signed the last deal and thought it was a big, wonderful thing that he had just done,” Langley said, pointing out that Trump referred to the last trade agreement forged with Canada as ‘the best deal ever’ when now he has issues with it.
In recent days, the federal government decided to rescind a tax on U.S. tech firms, paving the way for trade talks between the two countries. The digital sales tax would have seen big U.S. tech companies like Meta, Google, and Apple paying a three per cent charge on Canadian revenues exceeding $20 million. The DST was announced five years ago with the legislation to enact it not passed until last year. The first payment of DST on June 30 was set to be retroactive to 2022, accounting for the $2 billion bill.
