Trump Lifts Tariffs on 22 Canadian Goods, Adds 100 More

The White House took 22 Canadian products off its 50% Section 338 tariff list and added 100 new ones, with the changes taking effect Oct. 30.

The exempted goods include agricultural machinery, packing machinery, refrigeration and freezing equipment, corrugated boxes, plastic crates and bags, and seaweed products.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins said she secured the exemptions for her state's blueberry, potato, apple and seaweed growers, ahead of the Nov. 3 U.S. midterms.

Source: Global News, Oct. 23, 2026

On Friday, the White House amended its Section 338 tariffs on Canada. 22 products come off the 50% list, 100 new ones go on, effective Oct. 30.

Leaving the lot: agricultural machinery, packing and labelling machinery, refrigeration and freezing gear, corrugated boxes, plastic crates and sacks, and seaweed.

Arriving on the lot: cocoa powder, paints, shampoo, carpets, turf and wooden coffins. Because nothing says "protecting American workers" like a 50% duty on Canadian caskets. ⚰️

Using 2025 U.S. trade numbers, Global News pegs the goods getting relief at $5.1 billion and the newly tariffed goods at $2.6 billion. On paper, Canada comes out ahead on the trade-in. On paper.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, tied 49 to 49 in her latest poll, says she personally secured the exemptions for Maine's blueberry, potato, apple and seaweed growers. The midterms are Nov. 3. Pure coincidence, surely. Nobody in politics has ever timed a gift.

The White House calls it a refinement, and insists the tariffs still exist to offset what it calls Canada's discrimination against U.S. autos.

Meanwhile, a U.S. cheese importer, Gellert Global Group, sued at the Court of International Trade on Oct. 20, arguing the Depression-era Section 338 law doesn't give the president this power. A ruling there could matter a lot more than any exemption list.

Read the fine print on "agricultural machinery." Customs compliance summaries of the tariff codes describe the machinery lines as filling, sealing, packing, wrapping and agricultural produce machinery: the gear that washes and grades potatoes and apples. Our read, not confirmed line by line against the full annex: nothing in the published summaries points to Prairie-built seeding, tillage or harvest equipment getting relief. This deal was spec'd for one customer, and she's not in Swift Current.

The big tariffs stay parked. The 50% duties on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods remain, and they apply even to goods that qualify under CUSMA.

Ottawa runs a dealership too. Canada's own Sept. 8 counter-tariffs, which hit some U.S. farm machinery and parts, are still on the lot. If you were waiting for your next U.S.-built baler or parts order to get cheaper, keep waiting.

The real winners are Canadian exporters of packaging, cold storage and produce-handling gear. If that's your neighbour's shop, buy him a coffee on Oct. 30.

FCC took Saskatchewan's January cost-of-production guide and ran an 80% diesel price spike through it.

In the extreme case, a farm that pre-bought zero fuel, a 2,000-hectare Sask canola operation, has its 2026 fuel bill climb by $68,000 to $106,000.

It doesn't stop at the yard. Trucking fuel surcharges have hit 45% of the base freight charge, up from 25% earlier this year, says FCC chief economist Craig Johnston.

Rail, oddly, is the calm one: grain freight is up less than 1% this crop year, partly because federal rules cap how much revenue the big railways can earn moving Western grain. The one week the railways' revenue cap gets cast as the hero.

Johnston says pre-paying for fuel during price dips and storing it on-site has worked for some farms, though not every operation can pull it off.