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Here Are the Places Where the Recession Has Already Begun
Towns near the Canadian border are suffering.
Here Are the Places Where the Recession Has Already Begun
Towns near the Canadian border are suffering.Last month, Nicholas Gilbert received a delivery of grain for the 1,400 cows he tends at his dairy farm in Potsdam, New York, 20 miles from the Ontario border. The feed came with a surprise tariff of $2,200 tacked on. “We have small margins,” he told me. “I had a contracted price on that grain delivered to my barn. It was supposed to be so much per ton. And they added that tariff right on top because it comes from a Canadian feed mill.”
Gilbert cannot increase the price of the milk he sells, which is set by the local co-op. He cannot feed his cows less food. He cannot buy feed from another supplier; there aren’t any nearby, and getting it from farther away would be more expensive. When he got the delivery, he stared at the tariff for a while. Shouldn’t his Canadian supplier have been responsible for paying it? “I’m not even sure it’s legal! We contracted for the price on delivery! If your price of fuel goes up or your truck breaks down, that’s not my problem! That’s what the contract’s for.”
But the tariff was legal, and it was Gilbert’s responsibility. The dairy farmer is one of tens of thousands of American business owners caught in a spiraling trade war, and lives in one area of the United States that might already be tipping into a recession because of it. Businesses near the Canadian border are particularly vulnerable to the rising costs and falling revenue caused by tariffs, and are delaying projects, holding off on hiring, raising prices, letting workers go, or wondering how they are going to keep feeding their cows as a result.