PORTLAND, Maine — The Trump administration’s intensifying trade war with Canada could roil important midterm election contests, including a potentially pivotal U.S. Senate race in Maine.
The rhetoric and whipsaw of tariffs against the U.S.’s longtime ally has complicated Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins’ bid for a sixth term, at times pitting her against President Donald Trump as she tries to simultaneously hold on to support from Republican voters, after serving in office for nearly 30 years, without alienating the independents and Democratic swing voters she needs to win in November.
Meanwhile, her opponent, Troy Jackson, is trying to shackle Collins to Trump in a state where he is unpopular with Democrats and independents.
At the same time, some Canadian officials have acknowledged that the retaliatory tariffs announced last week are designed to exert pressure on key races across the country that could determine which party controls Congress next year.
When asked if the new levies are designed to influence midterm races, Canada’s industry minister, Melanie Joly, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., “We are putting pressure clearly on different states and different people. We don’t want to do that. We don’t want this trade war. We didn’t start it.”
Maine’s midterm contests will test Trump’s tariffs
Maine is particularly vulnerable to the pressure. Canada is the state’s primary trading partner, accounting for the vast majority of its imports and exports, according to International Trade Administration data. The state’s heritage industries — wood products, lobster and agriculture — are also deeply intertwined with its northern neighbor.
Like other Maine politicians, Collins has highlighted her advocacy for those industries throughout her nearly 30 years in the U.S. Senate.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s escalating tensions with Ottawa could become a factor in Collins’ contest with Democratic challenger Troy Jackson. The Democrat and aligned interest groups have tried to blame Collins for rising prices and failing to stop Trump’s tariffs as part of a larger election message that paints congressional Republicans as subservient to his whims.
In an interview with Maine Public after Trump announced the tariffs, Jackson questioned whether Collins was using her seniority and influence as the chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee to curtail Trump’s tariff spree.
“I think the appropriations chair has the ability to leverage that position in a way that a lot of these things either get stopped or progress much better than the way that it is right now,” he said.
Collins has voted repeatedly to halt Trump’s tariffs against Canada, and she’s recently urged his administration to cool rhetoric and levies that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has framed as a direct threat to his country’s sovereignty.
“Last spring, I warned that America is trying to break us so they can own us,” Carney said after Trump announced a wave of new tariffs after negotiations between the two countries fell apart in late August. “And I promised: ‘That will never, ever happen.’ We are keeping that promise.”
Collins focuses on economic ties, calling Canada ‘our best friend’
The challenges Collins faces were on display last month when Vice President JD Vance visited the state to stump for Republican candidates on the November ballot. It was Vance’s second visit to the state since May.
Collins attended neither event, citing scheduling conflicts.
Vance’s second visit came on the heels of the scuttled trade talks and he was asked about it during a brief question and answer session with reporters. He initially acknowledged Maine’s close economic and cultural relationship with Canada, but he then launched into a broadside against the country.
“Canada and China have been the two worst countries when it comes to trade policy anywhere in the world. What a shame that is,” he said.
He then stoked Canadian fears that Trump wants to make the country the 51st state.
“We have to remember, Canada is a state — sorry, Freudian slip. That was actually an accident,” he said.
He also cast Canada as defenseless against foreign adversaries, saying it has underinvested in its military and “would quite literally get invaded by a foreign country were it not for the umbrella of protection provided by the United States of America.”
Vance’s comments came on the same day that Collins said she was trying to warn Trump officials about the threats the trade war presents to Maine’s economy. She told Maine Public that she outlined the impacts to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
“This is not China we’re dealing with, it’s Canada — our best friend, a country with whom our economy is completely intertwined,” she said during an interview with Maine Public.
Meanwhile, Vance’s comments in Maine reverberated to Canada. A day after his campaign stop, the country announced a wave of retaliatory levies, including one that posed an imminent threat to the state’s iconic lobster industry.
Canada’s 25% tariff on seafood drew immediate alarm from the Maine Lobsterman’s Association because it would have come during the fall season when roughly half of the harvest is sold to processors in Canada.
“Maine lobstermen should not become collateral damage in a broader trade dispute. Losing access to such an important market at the height of our fall season could be devastating to fishermen and coastal communities,” the association’s director, Patrice McCarron, said in a statement.
Canada ultimately removed seafood from its list of levies set to go into effect Sept. 8.
Collins applauded the decision and urged U.S. officials to recognize it as a gesture of good faith and to “amicably resolve” the trade dispute.
The threat of tariffs on lobster illustrate how interconnected many Maine industries are with Canada.
An analysis of trade data by Maine Public shows the country is a leading trade partner among seven states with consequential Senate races this fall. Maine, which could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate next year, is the most dependent among those states. Forty percent of the state’s $3.2 billion in exports went to Canada in 2025 while the country accounted for nearly 70% of its imports.
Much of its wood products are processed in Canada before returning to the state. Canada makes the equipment used to harvest Maine blueberries and even supplies road salt to several border towns. Some border towns are also dependent on Canadian electricity exports because they’re not connected to the New England grid. That includes Collins’s hometown of Caribou.
The renewed tensions in the trade war present new challenges for Collins.
Earlier this year, Collins told attendees at a manufacturing conference that she lobbied the administration to keep levies off certain wood products that would have hurt a paper mill on the Canadian border that uses pulp and steam from a neighboring facility on the other side of the border.
But so far, the Trump Administration has shown no sign of deescalating new tensions.
The day after Collins spoke with Greer, the White House posted a photo on social media of a bald eagle pummeling a Canada goose.
The photo was from a real tussle on Lake Ontario, which Trump recently tried to rename Lake America.
Canadians saw symbolism in the encounter last year when Trump launched his first tariff spree and mused about annexing the country.
That’s because the goose survived the eagle’s repeated attacks, forcing it to give up and fly away.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.