Your Breakfast Will Be More Expensive: Trump's Tariffs Create A Sticky Situation For Maple Syrup Makers

Maple syrup isn’t usually the first thing you think of when President Donald Trump‘s tariffs are mentioned. However, the sweet, resinous goodness you’re used to slathering over your pancakes could be an unlikely victim of the global trade wars.

Canada Controls The Maple Syrup Market

Canada dominates the maple syrup market, accounting for 80% of the world’s supply and exporting two-thirds to the U.S., which puts it in the crosshairs of the trade war. In the U.S., Vermont, New York, Maine, and Wisconsin are producers, too. However, for all concerned, producing the sugary substance is truly an international affair. Impeding the business will land producers in a big sticky mess, with consumers liable to pick up the tab.

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“Any kind of disruption with our cross-border enterprise, we feel it,” Jim Judd, a fourth-generation sugarer at Judd’s Wayeeses Farms in Morgan, Vermont told the U.K.'s Independent.

Chinese Equipment

Judd said that many of the stainless steel fixtures used to extract and boil the sap are sourced from China, while the packaging is often imported from Italy. The bulk of the other equipment used originates from Canada.

“It’s like the weather in New England. You wait five minutes, and it might change,” Allison Hope, executive director of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Association, told The Independent. “Now it matters how Canada makes its equipment and gets its materials. … It’s hard for businesses to run on a growth mentality when there’s no sense of what the industry is going to look like in a year.”

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Explosive Growth

The maple syrup industry has enjoyed explosive growth over the past three decades. In the U.S. alone, production has increased from a total value of $34 million in 2000 to $171 million in 2022, according to Country Folks. However, climate change has been a big concern. “Most maple producers are concerned about their yield, concerned about their tree health,” Mark Cannella, associate professor and farm business management specialist at the University of Vermont, told the website. 

The prospect of tariffs has added another layer of worry to manufacturers. “If something is going up 25% or 5%, whatever and you sell it at the same price you’ve been selling it at for the last five years, that is going to dent our pockets,” Kevin Keyes, co-owner of Dry Brook Sugar House in Salem, New York told CNN.

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Smaller Farms Will Be Hardest Hit

Mapleland Farms, also in Salem, is one of the larger operations in the area, running up to 20,000 tap lines during sap collecting season, reports CNN. Equipment upgrades are an ongoing expense. While they benefit from economies of scale, co-owner David Campbell feels that smaller farms will feel the tariffs the hardest. New businesses will struggle to get off the ground, while established businesses will have to raise prices.

“It’s going to make it harder for production to grow with the cost of equipment and expansion going up unless there is a bigger increase in the price of a finished product. The consumer is going to get that,” Campbell told CNN.

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