Press Releases
Ranking Member Angie Craig Statement on Vote to End Trump’s Canada Tariffs
Washington,
February 11, 2026
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Britton T. Burdick
Today, House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (MN-02) released the below statement following a vote to end Trump’s tariffs on Canada, which House Republicans have for months blocked in their support of the president’s trade war which has increased costs on hardworking Americans and family farmers. Last month, Ranking Member Craig and fellow Democrats introduced the Farm and Family Relief Act (H.R.7206), which would repeal the president’s executive order deploying tariffs against Canada, in addition to providing necessary aid to America’s struggling farmers and people facing food insecurity. “Trump’s trade war with Canada is crushing our family farmers and working people in this country. American farmers supply nearly 55 percent of Canada’s agricultural imports – and threatening that market hurts farmers’ bottom lines. The president’s ill-conceived tariffs also drive up the cost of doing business and make life more expensive for ordinary Americans. Today’s vote was an opportunity to stabilize trade relationships with our Canadian trading partners and to bring down costs for working folks. I voted to end the president’s tariffs and am disappointed, but not surprised, that House Republicans again chose to put loyalty to the president before the interests of their constituents and American farmers,” said Ranking Member Craig. Background The independent, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office published a report today, stating that “higher tariffs directly increase the cost of imported goods, raising prices for U.S. consumers and businesses” and that “the net effect of tariffs is to raise U.S. consumer prices by the full portion of the cost of the tariffs borne domestically (95 percent).” According to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service data, Canada was the second largest agricultural trade partner of the United States in 2024. The United States buys 62 percent of Canada’s agricultural exports and supplies 54.8 percent of Canada’s agricultural imports, according to the same analysis. Canada supplies nearly 90 percent of our potash, a key nutrient used in the fertilizer farmers use to grow crops. According to a USDA farm income forecast released last week, 2025 farm income was revised down by $25 billion and is projected to slip lower in 2026 to remain roughly 24 percent below the record highs reached in 2022 under President Joe Biden. An analysis published this week by the American Farm Bureau found that farm bankruptcies increased 46 percent in the first year of President Trump’s worldwide trade war over the previous year. The report notes that this number does not account for all farm bankruptcies, due to bankruptcy eligibility rules – meaning more farms may have closed than are captured by formal Chapter 12 bankruptcy data. |
