Nov 11, 2026
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer didn’t mince words about what the tariff fight is doing to her state. Falling trade with Canada, she wrote this week, is “signaling severe strain with our strongest trading partner.”
She isn’t the only politician from the state that’s saying so. Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed, called the trade war “insane” two days after winning his seat.
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That pressure won’t end the tariffs overnight, but it signals mounting displeasure south of the border.
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What are Michigan’s leaders saying about the Canada trade war?
Whitmer made her case in a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, where she asked the Trump administration to end food tariffs levied in 2025 and 2026 and to reimburse Michiganders for higher grocery bills.
She cited research from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a U.S. non-profit taxpayer group. By its estimate, tariffs on goods imported into Michigan from January 2025 through September total US$27 billion. That works out to the equivalent of US$6,485 per household, the highest of any state. Much of that cost is paid by manufacturers importing parts and machinery, not directly by families.
Canada is at the centre of her concerns. Michigan imported about US$43.5 billion in Canadian goods in 2025 and sent US$21.2 billion the other way, according to data compiled by the Embassy of Canada in Washington. Vehicles dominated both directions. Michigan’s top exports to Canada were trucks (US$4.2 billion), cars (US$3.1 billion) and auto parts (US$2.9 billion). Cars (US$10.5 billion) topped its imports.
Elsewhere in her letter, Whitmer wrote that Michigan’s exports to Canada fell 12.3% in 2025. The figure matches the drop in Michigan’s agricultural exports to Canada reported by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD), the state’s farm and food regulator. “These tariffs and sudden policy reversals have weakened Michigan’s competitiveness and disrupted long-standing trade relationships,” she wrote.
Whitmer said she has pressed the issue before, including with Trump, writing: “In my interactions with the federal government, including with President Trump, I have been fighting for a smarter, strategic trade policy, and I will keep at it.” The letter doesn’t say how much reimbursement she wants.
El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers in the midterms and took his case to U.S. television on Nov. 5. During an interview on MS NOW’s Morning Joe, he said he’d work with President Donald Trump on stopping “these stupid tariffs with Canada.” In a sit-down with CNN just days later, he listed the trade war among three priorities for his Senate term and said “this tariff war in Canada is insane. It makes zero sense.”
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Can Michigan politicians actually end the tariffs?
Michigan’s leaders can pressure the White House, but they can’t lift the tariffs themselves. The 50% Section 338 tariffs, which cover about CA$27.6 billion worth of Canadian goods, were imposed by presidential proclamation, not by Congress.
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In April 2025, the Senate voted 51 to 48 to end the emergency declaration behind Trump’s first Canada tariffs, but the vote changed nothing. The U.S. Supreme Court then struck down those emergency tariffs on Feb. 20, 2026, but the Trump administration turned to other trade laws, including Section 338.
On Nov. 10, Prime Minister Mark Carney said that “the people who decide on trade agreements are the executive in the United States over the next two or three years.” Trump, for his part, said before the midterms that the two countries were “very close” to an agreement.
The White House says the Section 338 tariffs offset what it calls Canadian discrimination against U.S. goods, including provincial bans on American alcohol.
Why does Michigan’s tariff fight matter for Canadians?
The two economies are tightly linked, especially in autos. According to a Canadian Skills Training and Employment Coalition (CSTEC) report, more than half the content in Canadian-assembled vehicles comes from the U.S. Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on Canadian-made vehicles, auto parts and steel to 50% on Jan. 1, 2027. Since April 2025, the U.S. has charged 25% on the non-U.S. content of Canadian vehicles under Section 232, a national security trade law that is separate from the Section 338 tariffs. Those Section 232 tariffs on autos, steel, aluminum and lumber are now the focus of revived trade talks led by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to sources who spoke to CTV News.
Canada’s counter-tariffs of 15%, 25% or 50% took effect Sept. 8 on about CA$27.6 billion in U.S. imports, according to the Department of Finance Canada, the federal department responsible for tax and trade policy. Furniture, clothing and some steel and aluminum products face the top rate. Grocery inflation has cooled. According to Statistics Canada, store-bought food prices rose 1.7% year over year in September, the smallest increase since May 2024. Gasoline went the other way, rising 27.8% and pushing overall inflation to 3.1%.
Two January dates matter: the threatened auto tariffs on Jan. 1, 2027, and the swearing-in of a Democratic-controlled Congress days later. Until then, Canadian households are in the same spot Whitmer described for her own state, warning that without “tangible relief from the federal government, Michigan families will continue to bear the costs.”
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Writer and editor based in Toronto with experience in personal finance, insurance, arts and culture and branded content.
