U.S. tariffs 'discouraging,' Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce president says

The president of Thunder Bay's Chamber of Commerce says she's happy to see Canada and its provinces pushing back against tariffs imposed by the U.S.

"Canada and the provinces have been pushing very hard to try to find a solution and that would work for the U.S. administration," said Charla Robinson. "Unfortunately, it seems that all that effort hasn't really resulted in what we were hoping for.

"That is discouraging, but [I'm] pleased to see the strength of both the prime minister and the premiers coming out and continuing to stand together, and saying, 'OK, this is where we're at. We're going to push back and we're going to do what we need to do to protect Canadians and the Canadian economy from this unjustified trade war.'"

The U.S. imposed 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods on Tuesday.

Canada retaliated with tariffs and other measures of its own, including a 25 per cent tariff on U.S. imports. Ontario Premier Doug Ford also announced the LCBO would pull all American products from its shelves.

The move took the LCBO website offline on Tuesday, with a message reading "service unavailable."

"Our site is temporarily unavailable while we remove U.S. products in response to U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods. Our in-store customer service remains unaffected. Thank you for your patience and understanding."

Ford also announced Ontario will rip up its deal with Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet provider and American companies will be barred from provincial procurement contracts.

Robinson said the United States doesn't understand how connected the two countries are.

"This is all the doing of the U.S, government," she said. "They have made this choice to attack their friend and neighbour.

"They clearly don't quite understand just how integrated we are and that it will be felt on the U.S. side as well as on the Canadian side," Robinson said. "This isn't just going to punish Canadians — this is going to punish Americans and they're going to feel it hard.

"The president needs to understand that."

President Donald Trump initially planned to impose the tariffs about a month ago but delayed the move at the last minute.

Robinson said the month-long delay was beneficial to Canadian business.

"The extra time definitely, from what I'm hearing, has allowed businesses to get a better understanding of potential impacts, potential opportunities to address those impacts," she said. "It's also allowed Canadian and local companies to take a look at their product lines to see where are the things that they're importing from the U.S. potentially going to be impacted, and what might they be able to do to find different suppliers that are not from the U.S."

Fort Frances Mayor Andrew Halikas said he's concerned about the impact the trade war could have on the town, which is located along the Minnesota border.

"There's a great deal of uncertainty, in fact, over what the tariffs are really are going to do," he said. "But one thing we know for sure — we get a lot of fruits and vegetables from the Americans, and so the cost of food is going to go up."

"And like everywhere else, I think, in the province of Ontario, we suffer from homelessness. We have people here who are down on their luck, and any kind of increase in the cost of food and the necessities of life are going to harm people."

Fort Frances agricultural and forestry businesses will also be hit, Halikas said, as they send exports across the border.

And then there's the impact on tourism, Halikas said.

"We're a gateway to northwestern Ontario," he said. "Around Fort Frances, we have a lot of beautiful pristine lakes and forests, so we are a tourist destination.

"We're worried that our tourism is going to take an impact," Halikas said. "Our tourist camps are going to be more expensive to operate, so they're going to have to put their prices up and we don't know what effect that will have on our American friends coming up."