The US and Canada are embroiled in a tariff war, and it may “will come at a cost” for Ottawa as the Canadian PM Mark Carney had warned. But the fight is proving a win for at rather unusual sectors: from the ice-cream counter and gift shops to wineries and even defence manufacturing.As American goods face fresh Canadian tariffs, local businesses have seen an uptick due to the “buy Canadian” wave.Prime Minister Mark Carney has warned that moving away from the US as Canada’s biggest trading partner “will come at a cost,” adding that the counter-tariffs on American goods “are necessary to protect our workers”.The new Canadian levies cover nearly C$28 billion ($20 billion) of American products, ranging from steel and furniture to cotton T-shirts, with tariffs as high as 50%.
Local products in the basket
For Chapman’s, Canada’s largest independent ice cream manufacturer, the trade tensions have coincided with some of its best summer sales.The family-run company employs 1,150 people in Markdale, Ontario, about two hours north-west of Toronto. Ashley Chapman, the company’s chief operating officer, said the business had benefited as Canadians turned towards local products.“Every time Trump insults Canada, Canadians buy more Canadian things,” Ashley Chapman, chief operating officer for Chapman’s ice cream told the Financial Times. “It actually has worked out quite well for us.”The company has also been changing where it gets its ingredients and components. Since March last year, when Trump launched his first round of tariffs on Canada, it has been looking for suppliers outside the US.More than 70% of its American ingredients and components are expected to be replaced with Canadian or non-US sources by mid-2027.“If you had asked me two years ago, ‘what about sourcing your almonds from Australia?’ [instead of the US] I would have said you were insane,” he said.“It’s no great surprise that Trump is pushing for more concessions, more everything. But certainly Canadians have had enough,” he said. “The buy Canadian movement is strong and getting stronger.”
‘Buy Canadian’ gets a boost
Ottawa-based Maker House, a retail and online gift store, has spent the past 18 months selling 300 Canadian-made products. The business also stopped sending products to the US after tariffs increased its costs.“We had a really good year last year and then I think this past week we’ve had a good lift for sure,” said owner Gareth Davies.Among its most popular products were items carrying the slogan “elbows up”, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s battle cry for resisting Trump’s hostility towards Canada.“Everything in the store is made in Canada, you don’t need to worry and check the labels,” Davies said.“All this is a reminder that we can do better to protect our own economy by supporting Canadians who are making things,” he said.The shift has also been felt in Ontario’s wine industry.When American alcohol was taken off the shelves of Ontario’s government-run alcohol stores in response to Trump’s March 2025 tariffs, local producers saw a “significant boost” in demand as consumers embraced the ‘buy local’ sentiment.At Leaning Post Wines in Niagara, near Lake Ontario, sales increased by 3,000 cases.“We saw an additional 3,000 cases of wine sold. When you only make 8,000 cases, that’s a significant increase,” said Nadia Senchuk who runs Leaning Post Wines with her husband Ilya in Niagara, near Lake Ontario.“Our growth was great over the past 18 months,” she said.Ontario has nearly 200 wineries, which contribute more than C$5.5bn to the Canadian economy each year and employ 22,000 people, according to the Vintners Quality Alliance, a trade group. Sales of VQA wine were up 10% year on year last year.
Defence firms look beyond the US
The change in trade ties is also creating opportunities for Canadian manufacturers supplying defence-related products.Ontario-based Wuxly began by making coats for Canada’s freezing winters. It now produces defence- and aerospace-grade clothing for a number of military forces around the world.Its workforce of operating seamsters and seamstresses grew from 50 in 2024 to 200 in 2025. The company expects that number to cross 350 by the end of this year.Wuxly is hoping to benefit from greater local procurement in Canadian defence spending, replacing some demand for US suppliers.“We’ve definitely seen more interest in Canadian-made defence textiles under the Build–Partner–Buy framework set out in the defence industrial strategy,” said James Yurichuk, Wuxly’s founder and CEO.The company has also been looking towards Europe as Canada pivots away from US markets. It sent more than 250,000 Canadian-made goods to the EU last year and was “tracking to surpass this number” in 2026.“Perhaps the biggest silver lining of the trade war, and of the broader cooling in relations with the US, has been the heightened interest from European Nato nations,” Yurichuk said.“There’s still real work to do in supporting domestic champions but we’re heading in the right direction,” he added.
Others face price pressure
However, every business is finding the shift easy. Joey Walsh, owner of HockeyStickMan, a hockey equipment retailer, told FT that almost half of the company’s sales had previously come from the US.The family business operates stores in Toronto and Belleville in eastern Ontario and employs around 80 people. It sells equipment from brands including CCM and Bauer, along with its own Pro Blackout line, which is mostly made in China and avoids many of Trump’s latest duties.“Tariffs have affected our business significantly, but we’re doing everything we can to hold the line and not pass costs on to our customers,” he said.“Tariffs are charged based on where a product is made, not who sells it, so thankfully this round of tariffs has less impact on the industry than it appears to at surface level,” he added.Even where the direct impact of tariffs is limited, Walsh said businesses are facing extra work and costs because tariff levels keep changing. Customs, logistics and paperwork have all added to the strain.“It has gotten more expensive to operate, for us and for the industry as a whole. That pressure isn’t finished,” he said.
