Brampton, Ont., business says it's out $35K amid Trump tariff flip-flop

A Brampton-based business says the chaotic nature of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policies ended up costing them nearly $35,000. 

Taurus Craco Machinery is an independent machinery dealer that imports equipment from overseas and distributes it across North America, with much of their business going to the United States. 

After U.S. President Donald Trump's administration announced sweeping global tariffs on imports from several countries they do business with, the company rushed to get their imported products out to their American clients before the tariffs came into effect on April 9, said the company's owner and CEO Wes Love. 

"I had my entire staff work a lot of overtime and we thought we were doing everything right," he said.

Unfortunately, the shipment made it across the border a few minutes after midnight, narrowly missing the deadline. 

Typically, customs charges are passed along to the end receiver in the form of a higher price, but in this case, Taurus Craco didn't pass them on to its client as the sale of the products had already been negotiated. 

That results in a bill for $34,571, or $22,697 US, to Taurus Craco in customs charges from the brokerage company that handles its shipping fees. 

But the same day the global tariffs took effect, Trump abruptly changed his tariff policy again, pausing them for 90 days. 

Love said he feels like his company is being penalized for making a huge effort to try to save their clients some money due to tariffs — that were paused hours later. 

"It's just a heartbreaking situation for us when we played by the rules and did everything right in order to try to maintain some, you know, level of incoming revenue," he said. 

The case illustrates how Trump's chaotic tariff policies have made it much more risky for Canadian businesses to ship products across the U.S. border, said Andreas Schotter, a professor of international business at Western University's Ivey Business School. 

In the past, companies were willing to absorb customs costs for their U.S. clients because they had been predictable for years. 

"Because it has been, at least since NAFTA, then USMCA, so predictable … companies were more willing to take on the exporting/importing risk than before because there's never been really an issue around it, right?" he said. 

"And so there is, I would say, now a shock to the system where all of a sudden these tariffs go up and companies who have tried to accommodate their customers more are on the hook."

Tariff chaos making it difficult for business to plan 

As a company that imports products from several different countries, Love said the chaos of Trump's tariff policy has made it nearly impossible to adjust his business and plan accordingly. 

"We bring goods in from America, from Europe, from Taiwan, from China, from Turkey, and it's like, I don't know which way to go at Pearson," he said. 

"It's very difficult to map out the future to know which products we should try to import and sell."

That uncertainty is something many small businesses are grappling with right now, said Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

"It is near impossible for a small business owner to keep up with the many, many changes that we've had over the last two months on the tariffs between Canada and the United States. It is just a complete mess," he said. 

Trump's new tariff threats against other countries add another layer of challenges, he said. 

"You don't just have to pay attention to the Canada-U.S. tariff arrangements, but to every single component to determine the treatment for the parts that come from Asia or parts or come from Europe or Africa."