BELLINGHAM, WA (MyBellinghamNow.com) – Businesses in Whatcom County are split on tariffs — some say they aren’t experiencing effects, and others claim concern about threatening cost increases, according to a survey by the Whatcom Business Alliance (WBA).

The main thread between local businesses and experts seems to be uncertainty: it’s difficult to track and anticipate the effects of the trade war as its terms are constantly changing.

President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on imports from more than 90 countries as of August 2025. Canada currently faces a 35% tariff, in effect since Aug. 1. Canada accounts for 12.6% of U.S. imports, the third most behind Mexico and China.

Western Washington University’s Border Policy Research Institute (BPRI) conducted a survey earlier this summer with the Bellingham Regional Chamber of Commerce, collecting input on how tariffs impact local businesses.

According to BPRI, passenger vehicle visitation to the US from Canada dropped 22% this year.

Jennifer Bettis, research and program manager at BPRI, said several factors go into this decline. A poor exchange rate has historically led to less Canadian tourists, but the trade war and Trump’s offensive commentary also contribute.

“I think the most important reason that people, that Canadians, are not wanting to come over the border is the 51st state rhetoric and the threats to their sovereignty as a country. They see that as insulting and very damaging and would rather spend their money in their own country or other countries than in our country,” she explained.

It’s difficult to quantify how much Whatcom County relies on traffic from Canada, Bettis said. The last time the BPRI researched that figure was pre-pandemic, in 2018. Canadian shoppers accounted for $140 million in spending and an average of up to 11.7% of the County’s taxable retail sales at that time.

Barbara Chase, Executive Director at WBA, said that businesses in Whatcom County are still strong, even with tariff-related uncertainty and a decline in Canadian traffic.

The most recent survey conducted by the WBA shows that local businesses are more concerned with taxes and labor than tariffs, according to Chase.

Of the businesses surveyed, 42% said they are not experiencing tariff-related changes that have impacted their business. About 29% said they have absorbed higher input costs and 34.8% have seen increased product or service charges.

Businesses with stronger local connections that rely less on Canadian traffic are less impacted by tariffs thus far, Chase said.

“There needs to be a local dynamic here to make sure that you shop local, eat local,” she added.

Chase pointed out that the WBA’s survey respondents were primarily in the manufacturing, construction and professional service sectors, and that other industries face unique challenges. Small businesses represent 90% of the WBA’s membership, she said.

Bettis said most businesses in Bellingham that rely on importing and exporting from Canada are not dependent on direct sales: they will be most impacted by manufacturing and price increases along the supply chain.

Farmers can be affected by specific kinds of imported fertilizer, construction companies by the cost of wood or steel and craft breweries by the cost of aluminum.

Karolina Lobrow and Ben Howe own Otherlands Beer, a small craft brewery in Bellingham, which specializes in European-style ales.

They said that the cost of their malted barley, which they import directly from a maltster in Germany, has increased by 25%.

They order their barley around once a year, so they started worrying and planning ahead before Trump was elected for a second term, as he promised 10% blanket tariffs on the campaign trail.

The bottles they sell to-go beer in are imported from Canada, and cost 30% more since the tariffs were implemented. Howe said the bottles they use are not available on this side of the border, and there’s no economic incentive for someone to start making them here because demand is fairly low.

“One of the retorts one hears from people who are sympathetic to the tariffs is, ‘Well, why don’t you buy American things?’” Howe said. “It’s not that we don’t love American things. When I brew American IPA, I use American malt, but for making German-style beers and Czech-style beers, we need those ingredients. They taste different.”

Lobrow and Howe are concerned about having to pass price increases onto customers and the potential that the Trump administration’s actions will soil relations with their business collaborators overseas.

“We are a small business. If we break even, it’s a great year. It’s a very low-margin industry. We’re talking like 1 to 2%, some restaurants are 3 to 6%. And so, there’s just, there’s really no space,” Lobrow said.

Bellingham business Northwest Yarns said in an open letter to Congress in May that its business has seen a 20% decline since April, attributing the drop to President Trump’s trade war with Canada and his statements about the country.

Echo Mae, who owns Northwest Yarns, said nearly everything in her shop has had a price increase. Most of the yarn in her shop comes from out of the country as most of the wool in the world comes from Australia, China or South Africa.

“While we do offer yarns that are grown and spun here in the United States, they are also some of our most expensive yarns, because the cost to raise sheep, shear sheep, send the wool to the mill for processing into top and then into yarn, is an incredibly costly process,” Mae said.

Most hobbyist knitters don’t want to buy the most expensive yarn, especially when consumers are already feeling an economic pinch, Mae said.

Mae also said she has received emails from Canadian customers explaining that they appreciate her statements but still don’t feel comfortable coming back over the border to shop until the tariff issue is resolved.

Lobrow said she has spoken to some Canadian customers who have come across the border despite tense trade relations, who say that they shouldn’t be here or that their friends and family were supposed to come with them but cancelled.

Both Lobrow and Mae expressed gratitude to the community, which they say has come forward to support them during challenging times.

Mae said that small businesses are at the heart of community and encourage creative jobs that allow people to not only build skills but reach out to their neighbors.

“That’s a thing that small businesses are great at,” Mae said. “That’s the thing that really only we can do. If we disappear, our communities are going to be less for it. And my worry is, if something like this goes on long enough, we will disappear, or we will become so few that what we’ll have left are giant companies, giant companies only, and that would be sad.”

Chase said that the full extent of the tariffs remains to be seen and that the WBA seems to be about a quarter behind in getting the data they need to assess impacts.

“We have survey information that we just did, but now it’s a couple of months old,” Chase said. “It just seems like the environment is changing so rapidly, it’s kind of hard to keep up with what’s going on, particularly in our region, because we are a border town and we are somewhat dependent on Canadian traffic.”

WBA’s survey results are published in the most recent edition of Business Pulse magazine.

On August 22, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that the country would remove its 25% counter tariff on about half of U.S. goods on Sept. 1, as an attempt to reset its trading relationship with the U.S.

Duties on steel, aluminum and automobiles remain in place.