Impending U.S. tariffs worrying small businesses even more than past threats: CFIB

The head of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business started Tuesday with an upsetting email from one of the association’s 103,000 members.

The writer was a Canadian manufacturer who does so much of his business south of the border that he says he can’t see a way forward if the U.S. starts imposing 50 per cent tariffs on some Canadian exports starting Wednesday.

“He expects that if this goes ahead, the business is done,” CFIB president Dan Kelly said of the looming duties on a wide array of goods including booze, cement, honey and hockey sticks.

“Those are heartbreaking stories to hear from small business owners, many of whom have really worked hard to stay in Canada and build a strong trade in the United States. It’s a real shame that they’re feeling this degree of stress”

Kelly’s recounting offers a window into how businesses were faring as the midnight deadline to head off those new charges grew nearer.

Many business owners were on tenterhooks, hoping negotiators and politicians simultaneously locked in deliberations about the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade pact could broker a Hail Mary before the tariffs start being applied.

At stake are entire livelihoods.

Some 102,000 Canadian jobs and 214,000 American ones stand to be wiped out if the two countries can’t reach a consensus, a recent report prepared for the Canadian American Business Council by Oxford Economics suggested.

Others have predicted tariffs alone could greatly diminish some businesses and decimate others altogether.

The possibilities had members of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters feeling uneasy.

“They’re very worried and anxious as the deadline approaches,” chief economist Alan Arcand said. “For some of them, it’s a really big impact that’s going to potentially hit them in a few hours.”

In the lead up to Tuesday, he said many were handling questions from customers nervous to put in orders that would cross the border. Others were rethinking contracts, prices and supplies.

“All these usual things they’re thinking about, they have to work on them under this really uncertain scenario,” Arcand said.

Meanwhile, CFIB members were split into two camps, Kelly said.

The first figured it would be indirectly affected by tariffs because the items facing duties were necessary for only a portion of their products.

Those businesses said they would “grit my teeth and bear it until this ugly chapter is over,” Kelly said.

The other group doesn’t have that luxury. Whether or not U.S. President Donald Trump balks at applying tariffs, as he has several times this year, they have to be prepared because their business relies so heavily on the U.S.

“If your product is on the list of the new tariffs, you’re not consoled by the fact that many of the tariff threats don’t materialize,” Kelly said.

“You’re in full panic mode because tonight your product may be subject to 50 per cent and you just can’t afford to be cavalier about that, even if there is a prospect that this crisis gets averted.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 18, 2026.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press