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The Trump administration is preparing to eliminate 50 percent tariffs on select Canadian agricultural and forestry imports ahead of the midterm elections, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter — a move the report says is aimed at shielding Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and other border-state Republicans ahead of the Nov. 3 vote. A presidential proclamation altering the tariffs could be signed as early as Friday, although the scope and timing could change.
Shortly after the Journal's report, Collins said in a statement that nine categories of products, including blueberry, potato, apple and seaweed producers, will be exempted from the U.S. tariffs on Canada. In her own X post on Friday evening, the senator said she was pleased to have secured the exemptions for products crucial to Maine's agricultural industries, noting that many of the state's farmers and growers rely on specialized equipment, packaging materials and other products.
The relief is expected to come with a trade-off: the Journal reported that the administration may offset the exemptions by levying new duties on other Canadian goods. The dispute began in late August, when the White House invoked Section 338 of the 1930 Tariff Act — the Smoot-Hawley law — to penalize Canadian imports, prompting retaliatory measures from Ottawa. Trade talks broke down in August, and the two nations have been in a standoff since.
Collins, who is seeking a sixth term, is locked in a neck-and-neck race against Democrat Troy Jackson, who has made the trade war a central campaign theme in a state where border commerce is key. Republican candidates in other northern border states — where economies stretching from auto parts to lumber to fruit-picking equipment are intertwined with Canada's — face the same bind, and the Journal framed the exemptions as aimed mainly at boosting Collins.
The prospective overhaul has drawn pushback. A New Jersey food importer filed a lawsuit this week challenging the legality of using Smoot-Hawley powers for the levies. A White House official told the Journal that any tariff announcements would come directly from the administration and that advance reporting is speculation, while the U.S. Trade Representative's office declined to comment. Trump said on Friday that Canada is working on a trade deal with the United States, though the two nations have been locked in a standoff since the August breakdown.