Governors, Canadian officials meet to discuss trade and tourism
Photo | Courtesy of Chris Lisinski, State House News Service
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (second from left), flanked by Maine Gov. Janet Mills (left), listens to Ontario Premier Doug Ford during a Monday meeting between governors and premiers hosted at the Massachusetts State House.
With trade war threats looming, governors from the Northeast and eastern Canadian premiers gathered Monday at the Massachusetts State House to shore up relations, asserting their economies and populations are inextricably linked.
Despite messages of friendship and cooperation at the meeting, the political leaders pointed to disruptions in mutually beneficial supply lines, tourism, the energy grid, and overall relations between the U.S. and Canada. The officials are maneuvering to protect the interests of their constituents as President Donald Trump proposes tariffs against Canadian goods and suggests making Canada the United States' "51st state."
"We're limited as individual provinces and states, to a certain extent, around some of this," Gov. Maura Healey, who hosted the visitors, said when asked about any actions that might follow the morning's meeting. Leaders from the six New England's states plus New York attended, as well as the premiers from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, and a representative from Québec.
Healey continued, "Which is why we need action out of G7. But I think we're going to commit to work on ways to ensure a better flow of trade, a sustained flow of activity that will mitigate against some of the disruption to the supply chain that we've seen. Around tourism, we are committed to marketing the Northeast as a great destination for Canadians to come visit still at this time."
Trump met with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the Group of Seven (G7) conference in the Canadian Rockies on Monday morning. The group of U.S. governors and Canadian premiers who met at the same time said they hoped the two leaders would find some resolution during their talks in Alberta, Canada.
"I can't stress the urgency for both Prime Minister Carney and President Trump to strike some sort of deal to give people certainty. That's what we need. Certainty. Investors need certainty," Ontario Premier Doug Ford said at a public discussion following a closed-door meeting in the morning.
The G7 nations are Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.
Across the northeastern states, Canadian tourism is down between 20 and 60%, Healey said.
In Massachusetts, it's about a 20% decline, Healey said. Vermont reports hotel reservations by Canadians are down 45% and credit card spending is down 36%; in New York City, Canadian hotel bookings have declined by 45%.
"Between February and April, our tourism is down about 26%," said Maine Gov. Janet Mills. "Talking to businesses up and down the coast, reservations have been canceled... It's not the tariffs that affected them so much as the hurt pride for Canadian citizens. And I understand that."
Some of the premiers spoke about that hurt pride.
"Canadians, when they hear talk of the 51st state stuff, we're pretty ticked off. It makes us really, really upset," said Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston. He said earlier, "Everyone around this table is trying to deal with a situation that was thrust upon us. Nobody here created this situation — has created this divide between our countries."
A reporter asked the premiers if they would encourage Canadians to visit the U.S. this year, or rather send a message to Trump by spending their tourism dollars elsewhere.
"I would first say, travel to Canada. Come to Ontario. It's massive, twice the size of Texas," Ford said.
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt said she was sorry that Americans would likely lose tourism-related jobs due to the decline, but said it is up to U.S. citizens, not Canadians, to send a message to Trump about how his rhetoric is hurting them.
"People in the U.S. are losing their jobs in tourism, and we don't like to hear that, but what we want to say to them is — you've got to make noise. You've got to tell your leader that this is hurting the American economy. This is hurting jobs in the U.S. Canadians can't pass that message for you," she said.
She added, "But I can't tell Canadians to come visit the U.S. right now. I'm going to tell them to go and see my neighbors in Nova Scotia. I'm going to tell them to spend some time at home, because the relationship has been challenged by leadership and we need to get back to normal."
Governors and premiers agreed that the northeast states and eastern provinces are important trading partners — Canada being the number one importer and exporter for a number of states.
Trump's tariffs, a cornerstone of his economic plans, have been tied up in legal back-and-forth for months, hitting both roadblocks in courts at home and resistance abroad.
A blanket 25% tariff on Canadian goods has been halted and restored a number of times. The latest: a federal judicial panel ruled in May that large-scale tariffs like the one on Canadian goods were issued illegally, but a federal appeals court ruled the next day to temporarily preserve many of the levies.
In the meantime, a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum products — of which Canada is the largest foreign supplier to the U.S. — remains in place; and Canada has implemented retaliatory tariffs on a range of American goods.
"We have more cranes in Toronto than all the 10 largest cities combined in the U.S.," Ford said. "Guess where all the steel beams are coming from? The U.S. But that's coming to an end. We're going to give incentives to companies, we have big steel companies up there. We're going to start making that steel there."
Though the governors and premiers present Monday said tariffs disrupted long-established trade routes and made Canadian and American goods more expensive for people in both countries, the Trump administration says they're a necessary tool to make the U.S. less dependent on foreign manufactured goods and materials.
A fact sheet from the White House from February, when Trump first launched tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, says "Access to the American market is a privilege," and points out that the U.S. has one of "the lowest average tariff rates in the world."
"Tariffs are a powerful, proven source of leverage for protecting the national interest. President Trump is using the tools at hand and taking decisive action that puts Americans’ safety and our national security first," it says. "Though previous Administrations have failed to leverage America’s combination of exceptional strength and its unique role in world trade to advance the security interests of the American people, President Trump has not."
In addition to tourism and trade, the leaders discussed Canada's importance as the single largest foreign supplier of energy to the U.S.
In Vermont, 50% of the state's energy comes from Canada, Gov. Phil Scott said. About 25% of that is from Hydro-Québec. About 80% of the state's fuel comes from Canada, and 100% of its natural gas.
"We need each other to survive," Scott said.
Energy imports from Canada face a 10% tariff under a Trump executive order.
Premiers talked of additional investments their provinces are making in clean energy — including a possible wind farm off the coast of Nova Scotia, and doubling the production from the Churchill River in Labrador that provides hydro-electric power to Hydro-Québec.
"My colleagues across Atlantic Canada have big needs. We're talking about investments in transmission to support each other. That energy is needed in New England as well. And it's clean, it's reliable, it's stable, and what we're all looking for," Houston said. "There's all kinds of opportunity to collaborate on cost sharing on that, on research, to get the cost down, to make sure it's a more mature industry that benefits citizens."
Though much of the conversation focused on how states are being affected by White House policy on Canadian trade and tourism, Healey said the provinces are also negatively affected by the straining relationship.
"As important as Canada is to the United States, for all that Canada provides to us, the United States also provides a tremendous set of consumers, and we all benefit from this," she said. "So as leaders, we're going to take this back, and I expect good things to come from this. Concrete things. But also, hopefully we're sending a message today to our friends in Canada and across the United States that we are open for business."
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