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As Saskatchewan continues to navigate ongoing trade uncertainty with both the United States and China, the province says maintaining strong international relationships remains key to protecting its export-driven economy.
Saskatchewan’s Minister of Trade and Exports, Warren Kaeding, joined The Evan Bray Show to discuss the latest tariff threats from the U.S., the province’s recent trade mission to China, concerns over key industries facing economic pressure and why Saskatchewan continues to push for a unified Canadian response to trade disputes.
Read more:
- Gaps in tariff effects among provinces could test Team Canada’s unity: Experts
- Trump hitting countries, including Canada, with forced labour tariffs
- Carney says ‘everything’s on the table’ for tariff retaliation against United States
Listen to the full interview or read the transcript below:
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
EVAN BRAY: What a time to be Saskatchewan’s Minister of Trade and Exports with everything going on, and again, more tariffs threatened this week. And more tariffs coming on with these forced labour tariffs being announced officially yesterday.
WARREN KAEDING: Well, that’s exactly it. You get up every morning, you open the online portal, and just see what new and interesting things you are going to be dealing with today.
BRAY: There seems to be a bit of a discrepancy between the provinces as to what the response should look like. What are your thoughts?
KAEDING: Overall, what you’re seeing is frustration of provincial leaders that are very affected by tariffs. Their industry, their key sectors, are significantly affected by some of the implications of what we’re seeing, and they’re just expressing that publicly.
I would say a unified approach is best approach when dealing with with tariffs south of the border. We’re on our 10th round of tariffs in the last couple of years with the U.S. So I understand everyone’s frustration and just not knowing where things are leading.
Remarkably, industry has been able to get through that in a relatively good way, as we’re seeing with some of the trade numbers showing up here lately.
BRAY: You were just on a trade mission to China. What d you feel you came back with?
KAEDING: Reinforcing our willingness to be selling products to China that they need to support their food and energy requirements.
We do have what the world needs, and China is certainly one of those countries. As they’re working towards their food and energy security needs, we have the ability to support them in many of those areas.
Canola and peas certainly support their their food security needs. What we’re seeing is an emerging middle-class economy there that bodes well for the products that we have in Saskatchewan.
As economies improve, then the diet and health of individuals improves, and that’s where China is going right now. We’re so fortunate to be able to have the products they need.
BRAY: Are you able to talk about any specific wins you were able to bring back?
KAEDING: I wouldn’t say specific wins that I’m able to bring back, but so many of our trade deals are based on relationships, and the more familiar, the more confidence people have on the other side of that deal, the more likely they are to increase their buying.
Our role was as Ministry of Trade and Export from Saskatchewan was just to reinforce they are dealing with a dependable supplier of key goods and we are that and we’re able to give them a bit of an update as to crop status, industry and sector status here in the province, and just looking for opportunities to increase that.
I would say we had some very fulsome conversations, but obviously that final trade deal or tariff removal comes back to our federal government. We’re able to inform them as to the conversations that we had there.
I met with Maninder Sidhu, Minister of International Trade, and told him of some of the conversations we had with Chinese buyers and government officials that will support him on his trade mission. He’s going to be going to China soon.
BRAY: Do you have any update on canola tariffs?
KAEDING: We can’t preclude where our federal government is in negotiations with Chinese officials, but I would say the canola crush industry there is very supportive of having these tariffs removed.
We talked to some very high-profile, high-volume canola users in China, and they bared their soul. They showed us their books, and their margins were terrible while these tariffs were on. So there’s certainly even inward pressure from businesses in China to ensure that these tariffs are either removed or certainly reduced significantly.
BRAY: We hear a lot about trade missions that federally or provincially our officials take to different countries. What about trade missions to the United States?
KAEDING: I led a trade mission to Minnesota, which is Saskatchewan’s biggest trading state, in 2025, and was very successful at identifying what effect tariffs would have on their customers there. Whether it was the ag equipment people or it was the corn or soybean producers, it was great to be able to explain at the consumer level how tariffs were going to affect them.
Even just yesterday, I had a conversation with a small business in Saskatchewan that believed tariffs were established on this side of the border, and we still have that bit of confusion both in Canada and in the U.S. — where do tariffs come from, how they’re derived, and ultimately who puts them on?
It’s great to have those conversations at all levels, but I would say the most engagement we’ve had right now is at that elected official-to-elected official level. We’ve hosted a number of conferences in Saskatchewan through the Pacific Northwest Partnership, MLC Midwest Legislative Conference, NASCO.
We had an energy forum here a few weeks ago, where elected officials from all across the U.S. and Canada came together in one room talking these things through and that’s probably the most effective way that we’ve got to get our message through.
We have these very robust, very in-depth conversations as to how tariffs are affecting them at their local level, at their state or county level and ultimately their ability to communicate with the decision makers in the U.S. through that.
BRAY: Where are we feeling an impact from tariffs? What is it doing in Saskatchewan to industry?
KAEDING: The first one that comes to mind is the forest sector. We just heard that announcement the other day with Carrier pausing production, and that the forest industry has been dealing with tariffs in the U.S. for generations now. It’s remarkable they’ve been able to hang on and continue to operate. The forest industry would certainly be the first one that that we’re very concerned about.
Just a couple of days ago, I met with a lot of the short-line ag manufacturers here in the province — a remarkable, very robust, very diversified industry but are affected by steel tariffs. They’re sourcing their a lot of product from the U.S. and a lot of their distribution and sales are in the U.S.
The uncertainty around tariffs is what’s affecting them. Buyers, distributors are just saying “we gotta wait it out here a bit.” The economy maybe isn’t that strong in the U.S. ag economy right now, so they’re starting to see sales starting to drop or flatline, and that’s not what any business is hoping to see.
BRAY: There are some positive stories in our province — retail trade right now ranking first in the country, manufacturing sales were up almost 10 per cent over last month, wholesale trade growing by nearly 20 per cent. What do you attribute these good news stories to?
KAEDING: Probably the biggest thing is consumer confidence. Certainly as tariffs were first introduced, everyone was pretty nervous about how they were going to affect them. I would say everyone has now reluctantly said, “Okay, we know what’s going on in the tariff world. We need to continue to work on our business, to develop our business, and we are putting an effort into doing that.”
One thing that’s really starting to show up is the diversification of our markets. We talk so much about our international trade offices; they have now come to fruition.
Everywhere that we’ve got a trade office, sales have gone up anywhere from 2 times to 4 times to almost exponentially.
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