Protectionism, customs tariffs, inflation… Donald Trump’s return to the White House has many Quebecers fearing the worst. However, the result of the American presidential election is not as bad news as some think, says agri-food industry specialist at Dalhousie University, Sylvain Charlebois.
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“During his first term, food inflation was not much of a problem. In fact, food inflation has always remained around 1.5% to 2.5% from 2017 to 2021,” he explained in an interview on LCN.
As for customs tariffs, “Mr. Trump has often changed his mind,” recalls Sylvain Charlebois.
“When we talk about agri-food, we have to be careful. We are dealing with an industry where the margins are very, very thin,” he emphasizes.
The latter believes that imposing customs tariffs on Quebec and Canadian food products would be ill-advised for Donald Trump.
“Ms. Harris lost for many reasons, but one of the big reasons she lost was because of inflation and the cost of living in the United States. I don’t think Mr. Trump actually wants to bring misery to Americans by applying tariffs on Canadian products to increase Americans’ grocery bills.
The specialist considers it more likely that such tariffs mainly target products coming from China.
Mr. Charlebois also recalls that during Donald Trump’s first term, Canada ratified a new free trade agreement which was very profitable for agri-food producers here.
“Exports have exploded. We export almost $60 billion worth of agri-food products now, which is a record. So, NAFTA 2.0 was extremely beneficial for our Quebec and Canadian SMEs, especially. We export a lot more,” says Sylvain Charlebois.
To see the full interview, watch the video above.
