Montana farmers warn Canadian tariffs threaten Golden Triangle — SkimNews
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- Steve Sheffels, a wheat farmer in Montana's Golden Triangle and president of the Montana Grain Growers Association, said he was considering buying a new drill and Canadian grain bins but now fears he won't be able to afford them due to retaliatory tariffs.
- Canada is Montana's largest trading partner with $1 billion in cross-border sales according to the Montana World Trade Center at the University of Montana, and most farm equipment is now subject to a 15% or higher retaliatory tariff from Ottawa's $20 billion counter-tariff list.
- Lee Dahlman, a fourth-generation wheat farmer near Dutton, Mont., said he is investing in soil-based probiotics to cut fertilizer use and rotating in chickpeas and lentils that naturally inject nitrates into the soil to reduce exposure to geopolitical price swings.
- Montana farmers are already facing soaring fuel and fertilizer prices, generally flat commodity prices since the 1970s, and rising interest rates, and are now weathering their second trade dispute spanning two Trump administrations, according to the article.
- Jillien Streit, director of the Montana Department of Agriculture and a family farmer near the Canadian border, said she has been pushing producers to shift away from monocrops and explore regional food markets closer to home, framing the tariffs as 'very trying' but also an opportunity.
- Brigitta Miranda-Freer, executive director of the Montana World Trade Center, noted that Canadian companies buy Montana cattle, feed them in Canada using Montana barley, and described the two economies as 'largely intertwined' across the three Canadian provinces that border the state.
- Sheffels said the dispute is personal because his wife is Canadian, adding bluntly: 'You don't treat your neighbors like this,' even as Montana voted overwhelmingly for the president three times, complicating the politics around the tariffs.
Why it matters: Montana's $1 billion cross-border trade relationship with Canada is being disrupted by retaliatory tariffs on top of already soaring input costs, flat commodity prices, and a second trade war in a decade. Farmers who backed Trump three times now face higher equipment costs and must pivot toward diversification or precision tech just to stay solvent, with no clear off-ramp in sight.
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