Canada and the US failed to reach a trade deal, and Ottawa has now unveiled dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs on roughly 700 American products worth $27.6 billion, alongside a $7.5-billion support package for affected workers and businesses. The new tariffs, ranging from 15% to 50% depending on the product, take effect September 8.
Insurance Business Canada asked readers where they saw the biggest insurance-industry risk from the collapse. The largest share, 33%, said they expect minimal insurance impact, while rising claims costs and slower trade-line growth tied for second at 25% each, and 17% pointed to increased demand for trade cover.
That reader skepticism lines up closely with what Mariano Neiman, COO at Zensurance, is seeing in the company's own small business survey data, though he was careful to frame tariffs as one thread in a larger picture rather than the dominant concern.
"Less than 10% had tariffs as the biggest concern that they think about and being top of mind," Neiman said. "However, what the results do show is that they're feeling a lot of economical pressures."
Those pressures show up clearly in the numbers, Neiman said: 55% of business owners feel the economy has hurt their business compared to last year, 71% report higher operating costs than 12 months ago, 43% are seeing lower revenues, and nearly 47% have considered closing their business this year altogether.
"It's a combination of all these economic pressures creating this anxiety and this drop in confidence by business owners," Neiman said.
Rather than any single culprit, Neiman said tariffs are best understood as one contributor within a broader mix of cost pressures squeezing small business margins from both directions.
"Ultimately, it's those cost pressures, whether it's gas, inflation, cost of goods, and whatever the source is that may be causing those," Neiman said. "It's the rising costs paired with decreasing revenues creating this pressure coming from both ends, squeezing small business owners' margins, depleting reserves."
The tariff standoff between Canada and the US came to a head after weeks of negotiations failed to produce a deal by Friday's deadline. US President Donald Trump followed through on his threat to impose new 50% tariffs on billions of dollars worth of Canadian goods, a list that includes items normally protected under the Canada-US-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). The Trump administration has framed the move as a response to what it calls discriminatory Canadian trade practices, including provincial bans on US alcohol, and has invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to justify the tariffs.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the final US offer a "bad deal," telling reporters Canada "could not accept what the US had offered, nor could we give what they had asked."
Ottawa's response, announced Tuesday by Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne alongside several other cabinet ministers, matches the US tariffs dollar for dollar on a list of roughly 700 products. Rates on the Canadian list range from 15% to 50% depending on the item, with steel, aluminum, furniture and clothing among the goods facing the steepest 50% levy, mirroring the US increase on the same categories. Notably, the list excludes any energy-related countermeasures.
Beyond the tariffs themselves, the federal government unveiled a broader $7.5-billion support package aimed at workers and businesses hit hardest by the dispute. That includes temporary changes to Employment Insurance eligibility, an expanded Regional Tariff Response Initiative, a new liquidity stream through the Business Development Bank of Canada's Pivot to Grow program, and $2 billion earmarked for the Canada Strong Diversification Fund. Officials also confirmed changes to the Large Enterprise Tariff Loan facility to widen eligibility.
The uncertainty around this exact scenario isn't new to Insurance Business Canada's coverage. Speaking to this publication in mid-August, before this week's collapse, David Dienesch, CEO of Allianz Trade in Canada, urged businesses to treat tariff-driven uncertainty as an ongoing discipline rather than a one-time event to wait out.
"We're heading for a lot of years of uncertainty ahead of us," Dienesch told Insurance Business Canada at the time. "Almost by definition, risk management means spreading your risk. So diversification is so important."
