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Janet Mills is the 75th governor of the state of Maine. This column was originally published by the Toronto Star.
Last year, I sat down for a cup of coffee at the Tim Hortons in Caribou, with Ron Turcotte, the legendary Canadian jockey who rode Secretariat to the Triple Crown in 1973.
Ron lived across the border in Grand Falls, New Brunswick, but he picked up his mail almost every day at the U.S. Post Office in Van Buren. His life, like so many people who call our border communities home, didn’t fit neatly on one side of an international boundary.
Ron may have lived an extraordinary life as a jockey, but in this respect, his story was fairly ordinary: Maine and Canada may be divided by a border, but our communities, families and economies are deeply intertwined. In places like the St. John Valley in northern Maine, these connections existed long before the border ever did.
That’s why last June, after President Donald Trump disparaged Canada and escalated his trade war, I traveled to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. I wanted Canadians to hear directly from Maine that Washington’s fight with Canada was not ours — and that his trade war was hurting Maine people, too.
On both sides of the border, the president’s trade war has driven up the cost of everything from groceries to cars and trucks and construction materials needed to build more homes.
His tariffs on Canadian lumber have hit Maine’s forest products industry hard, with exports to Canada last year falling by 20%. Increasing costs for Canadian wood has affected supply throughout the industry. As a result, Woodland Pulp in Baileyville was forced to temporarily lay off 144 millworkers last fall. That decision had a ripple effect across the border, affecting more than 50 timber producers throughout the Sussex Region of New Brunswick.
And now the effects of the president’s latest escalation are reaching farther into Maine communities.
In the Maine section of the St. John Valley, about 90% of municipal road salt comes from Canada. In response to the president’s new tariffs, a major Canadian distributor has announced that it will halt deliveries for the foreseeable future. In northern Maine, where measurable snow can arrive as early as late September, the president’s trade war may soon threaten small town public safety.
The damage to our state from the president’s whiplash global trade policies is not just limited to business with Canada.
In Jay, a rural town that overwhelmingly voted for Trump, a promising project would have turned a shuttered mill into an oriented strand board production facility, creating 125 new jobs. The developer was forced to scrap his plans when tariffs made importing critical equipment from Europe too expensive.
Trump says his tariffs will bring manufacturing jobs back to America. In Jay, his tariffs killed 125 of them before they could even be created.
Now Canada is responding with retaliatory tariffs of its own, adding levies to goods that last year made up $170 million of Maine’s exports. These tariffs will make exporting these goods more expensive, worsening the damage to industries and communities that never asked to be caught in this fight — industries and communities that, like Turcotte’s life, don’t fit neatly on one side of the border.
Last week, Vice President JD Vance came to Maine and said the Trump administration is trying to make sure our state gets a “fair deal.” There is nothing fair about a trade war that is raising costs for Maine families, killing manufacturing opportunities, or putting small businesses, millworkers and rural communities in the crosshairs of a fight they did not start.
Trump must deescalate his unnecessary trade war before Canada’s retaliatory tariffs take effect Sept. 8.
Last week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that Trump is treating Canada “like Communist China.” My friend Doug is right: This is no way to treat an ally. In Maine, we sit down with our neighbors and work through our disagreements. We don’t resort to coercion and intimidation to get what we want.
As the governor of Maine, I want Canadians to know that the people of my state respect your proud history as an independent nation. We will continue to raise awareness about how damaging these tariffs are and push Washington to end this dispute.
We share more than a border with Canada — we share an economy, a history, friendships and families, and a way of life. Our relationship does not belong to any one president or prime minister. It belongs to the everyday Mainers and Maritimers who can pull up a chair at Tim Hortons, do business together, and lend a hand when a neighbor needs one.