Montana grain farmers face new costs as Canada's retaliatory tariffs bite

Golden Triangle’s deep ties to Canada now face 15% retaliatory tariffs

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — The escalating trade fight between the Trump administration and Canada has landed in the equipment sheds of north-central Montana, where retaliatory tariffs of 15% or higher now cover most farm machinery that grain growers had long purchased from their northern neighbor. Farmers were already coping with soaring fuel and fertilizer prices before the latest round of duties arrived.

The Golden Triangle, an area in north-central Montana that is one of the most productive wheat and barley growing regions in the U.S., touches three Canadian provinces, and the cross-border economy is tightly braided. Brigitta Miranda-Freer, executive director of the Montana World Trade Center at the University of Montana, said Canadian companies purchase Montana cattle, ship them north to be fed out, and the cattle often eat Montana barley while they are there. Her center puts cross-border sales with Canada at $1 billion, making it the state’s largest trading partner by a wide margin.

Montana farmers had turned to Canada for select equipment and supplies in part because of favorable exchange rates. Steve Sheffels, a local wheat farmer in the Golden Triangle, said the equipment he now wants to replace is among the items affected.

“I’d like to consider buying a new drill and I’m also looking at grain bins that come out of Canada and I’m afraid I won’t be able to afford them,” Sheffels said.

Most farm equipment is now subject to a 15% or higher retaliatory tariff, layering a fresh cost onto producers who were already navigating a difficult economy. Sheffels also serves as president of the Montana Grain Growers Association.

The retaliatory tariffs are the latest in a string of economic shocks for grain farmers in the region. Producers have endured generally flat commodity prices since the 1970s, recent rising interest rates, and a second trade war spanning two Trump administrations that has threatened longtime business deals across the border.

“Things are more volatile,” said Lee Dahlman, a fourth-generation wheat farmer and cattle rancher near the tiny town of Dutton, Mont. “The uncertainty is what bothers me.”

For Dahlman, the uncertainty underscores how farmers need to adapt and control what they can in order to be less susceptible to geopolitics. He has been investing in soil-based probiotics to add during planting so he does not have to buy as much fertilizer, and where he can, he is rotating chickpeas and lentils into his acreage — crops that naturally inject nitrates into the soil.

“As long as you’re smart and wise about it, you know, we don’t have to buy out of Canada,” Dahlman said. He added that he hopes the latest tariff battle between the U.S. and its longtime neighbor and ally ends in a stable deal.

The politics around the tariffs are complicated by Montana’s overwhelming support for President Trump, whom the state has voted for three times. Dahlman, for his part, said he has read the administration’s pattern as one of harsh openings that tend to soften later.

“I think I’ve got this administration figured out,” Dahlman said. “A lot of it comes out pretty harsh, pretty quick, pretty fast. But it usually softens as time goes.”

Jillien Streit, director of the Montana Department of Agriculture, also runs a family farm with her husband near the Canadian border. She said her office has been pushing producers to shift away from monocrops and explore regional food markets closer to home.

“It’s just sad that food has to be a bargaining chip,” Streit said.

She acknowledged that producers see opportunity in the disruption. “These tariffs are very trying at different times,” Streit said. “But there’s also opportunity that comes with it.”

Sheffels said he has already saved tens of thousands of dollars on inputs by investing in new equipment that uses computers to apply pesticides and fertilizer like liquid nitrogen more selectively on his fields. That investment has insulated him somewhat from the cost of fertilizer and chemicals, but the next round of equipment he wants to buy is now exposed to the new Canadian tariffs.

Sheffels does not mince words when it comes to the deteriorating relations between Washington D.C. and Ottawa. For him, the dispute is personal. His wife is Canadian.

“You don’t treat your neighbors like this,” Sheffels said.