WA exporters brace for Canadian tariffs as trade war with U.S. flares

Days after the U.S. officials slapped new tariffs on Canadian imports, Canada returned fire with its own tariffs Tuesday, and the salvo could land hard in Washington state.

Several of Washington’s biggest exporting industries, including papermaking, industrial machinery and seafood, will see tariffs of 15% to 50% on some products sold to Canada starting Sept. 8, according to a list released by the Canadian government that details more than 700 U.S. products.

“It’s definitely not what anyone was looking for,” said Margaret Pilaro, executive director of the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association, which represents producers in Washington and other West Coast states and Hawaiʻi.

In 2025, seafood was Washington’s biggest agricultural export to Canada, according to state Department of Agriculture data.

“We’re still evaluating how the tariffs will impact us,” said ​Diani Taylor, with Shelton-based Taylor Shellfish farms, one of the largest shellfish producers in North America and an exporter to Canada.

That uncertainty was echoed by many industry and state officials Tuesday as they continued to pore over the list of products covered by the new tariffs.

Canada’s new tariffs cover a relatively small percentage of total U.S. imports, media reports say, just as last week’s U.S. tariffs covered around 5% of Canadian exports to the U.S.

“At this stage, it is too early to know what tariff impacts could look like for Washington,” said a spokesperson for the state Department of Agriculture.

But the potential exposure is large, particularly if trade relations sour further between the U.S. and Canada, which vies with China as Washington’s biggest export market.

In the first six months of 2026, Washington exports to Canada topped $4 billion, just behind the $4.6 billion to China, and accounted for 11% of the state’s total export sales of $37 billion, according to state Department of Commerce data.

And more uncertainty is looming as President Donald Trump reportedly considers additional tariffs on imports from China.

‘Escalating trade dispute’

Canada’s new tariffs don’t appear to hit Washington’s biggest export — aerospace products — at least, for now.

But the sectors they touch, including industrial machinery, paper and paperboard, electrical machinery, seafood and wood products, are major drivers in the state economy.

In 2025, Washington exports to Canada included nearly $900 million in industrial machinery, $460 million in paper and paper board, $325 million in seafood and $211 million in wood products, according to state data.

The new tariffs come as Washington businesses are already facing other economic headwinds, including higher costs for energy, material and labor.

Those pressures could increase with tariffs, which are taxes paid by importers in the country imposing the tariffs. Often, importers respond by buying less or finding alternative suppliers, which hurts exporters’ sales.

That would be unwelcome for many Washington exporters targeted in the current rounds.

The state’s papermaking industry, for example, has already seen mills close in recent years amid shifting global demand.

“Access to stable export markets and reliable cross-border supply chains is important to the long-term viability of pulp and paper manufacturing and the family-wage jobs it supports,” said Josh Estes, spokesperson for the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers, in an emailed statement Tuesday.

“Workers should not bear the cost of an escalating trade dispute,” he added.

Shellfish farmers could be in the same boat.

Some have already faced cooling demand as inflation-weary consumers cut down on spending in restaurants, where a large share of shellfish is consumed.

“They’re not eating out as often and if they are, they’re not ordering high-value shellfish,” said Pilaro, with the shellfish growers association.

That’s on top of higher energy and labor costs and, in some cases, lost sales to existing export restrictions for some shellfish by China.

The last few years have “been death by a thousand cuts” for the West Coast shellfish industry, Pilaro said. This week’s escalation in the U.S.-Canada trade war “is another one.”