Sask. welding company concerned about U.S. tariffs on steel

Adam Logue, CEO of JNE Welding, is bracing for the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and the counter-tariffs Ottawa is ready to put in place on Tuesday.

Louge said the Canadian tariffs will impact his company directly, as JNE gets 40 per cent of its steel from the United States.

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“We’re okay in the short term, because we’re not exporting to the U.S., but obviously with increased input costs like steel – which Trudeau has announced for that second phase of counter-tariffs – that jeopardizes current planned projects,” Logue explained.

“The industry is already dealing with increased construction costs, and we’ve seen some projects in the west here get shelled due to those increased costs. This isn’t going to help.”

Logue said he expects the prices of domestic steel will also rise as the tariffs and counter-tariffs are imposed.

“Although we still have the opportunity to buy Canadian, you can be assured that the Canadian price of steel is going to increase as well,” Logue added. “Most of our customers are in western Canada, and so we’re not exporting, but we still have input costs from the U.S.”

It’s still too early for Logue to say exactly what impact the tariffs will have on his business, but his company is working to minimize the damage by purchasing extra steel before the prices shoot up, though he noted that long-term projects will certainly be impacted.

Louge said he hopes that if the tariffs do cause significant harm to companies like his, the federal government could step in and provide a stimulus package to help large projects go forward instead of stalling.

“I’m still concerned about what’s going to happen beyond these projects,” he said.

“Hopefully Canada implements some stimulus and gets some other projects going internally so we reduce our reliance on the U.S., but until then we don’t know.”