With 25 per cent tariffs hanging over the heads of many Maritimers business owners, some like Darrin Smith are facing difficult decisions. “I’ve got two choices. Either I can sell the company to a U.S. company – and I have a few companies who have been pursuing us for quite a while and they would move the production down to there – or I can move the business myself. I’m looking at two states right now, I’m looking at Ohio and Texas, to be honest,” Smith says. “My son and my son-in-laws, they’re stressed out. Nobody wants to move. We want to grow because we can’t keep up with our sales.” Smith’s company JessEm Tools manufactures woodworking tools and accessories, and employs 70 people. He’s been in business for nearly 30 years and for him, there’s no replacing the U.S. market. “We sell all over the world. Eighty-seven per cent of our business in the last four months went to the U.S. so we’ve always done over 80 per cent there,” says Smith. That’s exactly what President Donald Trump is looking for, according to Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab. “He’s the perfect target to force to move,” Charlebois says. Those in the agriculture industry, however, don’t have the same ability to pack up and move south to save their business. “You can’t move farmland, you still have to produce wheat and barley, so that’s why it’s a little more complicated and of course you’ve got the perishability issue,” Charlebois says. Experts worry Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs are creating the perfect storm for all businesses. The president now claiming the levy will take effect March 4. “Business owners are essentially looking through a snow globe that’s permanently shaken at this point. They just don’t know,” says Louis-Phillipe Gauthier, Atlantic vice president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Smith has put his hiring plans on hold as his next move hangs on the whims of the president. “If there’s no tariffs, it’s business as usual,” Smith says.
