Farmers Forum staff
OTTAWA — Canada beekeepers are bracing for impact after the U.S. imposed new tariffs on honey.
The U.S. said last week that it will impose a 50 % tariff on imports of Canadian honey. This is one of the many goods that have been hit, in what Trump’s administration called retaliatory action against Canada.
Canadian beekeepers told the Globe and Mail that honey prices could drop by 40 % if the tariffs come into place. These tariffs are expected to come into effect on Aug. 19. Some businesses may fail.
“The whole industry is in an uproar over this,” said Peter Awram, who runs Worker Bee Honey Co., to the Globe and Mail. “It will be brutal.”
People are struggling to understand why the honey industry relationship from both sides of the border has to be disrupted. After all, according to Globe and Mail, both sides have worked alongside each other for decades with few grievances.
Honey has rarely been a source of major trade disputes says Globe and Mail. Canada accounts for just 2 % of the honey consumed by Americans, with much of its exports consisting of industrial-grade honey destined for products such as breakfast cereals and honey-glazed hams. However, the trade is not one-sided. Last year, the United States imported just over US$20 million worth of Canadian honey while exporting nearly US$10 million in queen bees to Canada, underscoring the deeply interconnected nature of the North American beekeeping industry.
So in the U.S. “we don’t mind that you sell honey down to us,” Mr. Linder told Globe and Mail. “That’s not a big deal.”
It is somewhat puzzling to think why honey was added to the list of tariffs imposed by the U.S. to Canadian goods. It is true that some of the tariffs are merely symbolic, like for example, the one applied to hockey sticks. However, Globe and Mail notes that no tariff has been imposed on Canada’s most famous sweetener: maple syrup.
Honey, by contrast, will be hit so hard that ”it would probably mean a total termination” of exports to the U.S., said Mr. Lalonde, who is president of the Saskatchewan Beekeepers Development Commission., to Globe and Mail.
“I’m mad as hell about this,” he said. “They didn’t even ask us what we thought. They just threw us into the mix.”
