B.C.’s wine and dairy sectors are bracing for a 50 per cent U.S. tariff taking effect Aug. 19
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Lauren Skinner expects her American importer to stop buying.
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Skinner is the managing director of Painted Rock Estate Winery, the family owned Penticton operation her parents John and Trish Skinner founded. Its bottles reach several U.S. states through a California importer, who told her some time ago that she would stop bringing in Canadian wine if tariffs ever came about.
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On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed three proclamations: an additional 50 per cent tariff on Canadian wine, dairy and stationery — about US$20 billion worth of goods — effective Aug. 19. Reaction from B.C. businesses has been more weary than alarmed. Most say they sell too little south of the border for the tariff to matter; the few that do export describe a market closing over a dispute they have no part in.
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“There’s no way that our importer will be able to do business with a 50 per cent tariff on Canadian wines,” Skinner said. Nor will anyone risk a large order in the meantime, she said, because no one knows whether the tariff will actually happen or how long it will last.
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Painted Rock is unusual. Most B.C. wineries sell nothing at all in the U.S.
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“Most B.C. wine is enjoyed by Canadians,” the B.C. government said, putting typical annual exports to the U.S. at between $200,000 and $700,000, and global exports at $1 million to $3 million.
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That makes for a strange tariff: one that names an industry that barely sells to Americans.
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Jeff Guignard, chief executive of Wine Growers British Columbia, said the reason lies elsewhere. Nearly every province pulled American liquor off store shelves last year, in response to Trump’s earlier tariffs.
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“It’s not a 50 per cent tariff on Canadian wine,” he said. “It’s a reaction to our earlier reaction to taking U.S. products off of the shelves.”
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What frustrates him is who gets caught in that loop — small rural businesses with no part in a fight between two governments.
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For Skinner, the American market was never about volume. It was about building a name, and about customers who had found her wine while travelling. That mattered more than usual this year, after American critic James Suckling toured the Okanagan and praised the wines he tasted.
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“That’s a huge opportunity for Canadian producers, and it was something that we were looking forward to capitalizing on,” Skinner said. “And that now is no longer something that we’re going to be able to do anything with.”
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Her first reaction to the news was exhaustion.
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“I feel like the last six years in the wine industry has just been constant pivots,” she said.
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Other wineries expect no effect at all.
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Rasoul Salehi, managing partner at Enotecca, which owns Le Vieux Pin and LaStella, said Canadian wine never established itself in the U.S. and that it’s easier to sell into Asia or Europe.
