Back in March, the media was all upset because the Orange Man was killing the Kentucky whiskey business.
The Lexington Herald-Leader reported, “Trump’s trade war cripples Kentucky bourbon. American whiskey exports down $250 million.”
Sales to Canada fell by about $160 million.
The report was basically a press release from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, aka DISCUS, an industry lobbying group that not surprisingly opposes having its exports taxed. “Toasts, Not Tariffs” is its new slogan. The reporter did not bother to ask the Trump administration or the Canadian government about this.
Trump didn’t slap the tariff on whiskey. Canada did. This led to a 19% dent in exports. Overall, the distillers saw their revenues drop 3.8% because besides exports to Canada, domestic whiskey drinking is in a deep decline. We have to convince Muslims and Mormons to imbibe or leave the country.
In fact, all but two Canadian provinces banned U.S. whiskey in September 2025 to show that Orange Man who’s the boss.
Ontario PM Doug Ford, who is dumber than a rock, paper and scissors, went one step further. Ford threatened to remove from his province’s liquor stores Crown Royal—the premiere whiskey in Canada.
Ford did this to protest the company closing a bottling plant in Amherstburg, Ontario, and opening a $415 million facility in Montgomery, Alabama. Ford called off the ban after Crown Royal gave the province $23 million. Look for some of Ford’s unemployable friends and relatives to finally get a job.
Despite Canada’s war on whiskey, America’s distillers still managed to survive by selling more than $6 billion worth of whiskey because Canadians don’t drink a lot of our booze. We do.
Before Canada slapped the tariff on our whiskey, about 4% of the booze we distilled went to Canada.
In slapping a retaliatory tariff on us, Mark Carney overlooked the fact that Canada sells 10 times the whiskey to the USA as we do to Canada.
Half the booze Canada makes goes to the United States. We drink 93% of the booze it exports.
As near as I can tell, a thousand Canadians work to make whiskey. Lose half your sales and you lose half of those jobs.
After a year or so of Canada banning our whiskey, President Trump returned the favor as part of his FAFO trade policy.
ABC reported, “A United States ban of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Canadian products took effect on Tuesday, escalating a trade war between the longtime allies and pinching imports from one of the top U.S. trade partners.
“The ban applies to an array of products spanning from alcohol to motorcycles to dairy goods, White House documents show.
“In all, the affected products account for $967 million worth of annual imports from Canada, Jacob Jensen, director of trade policy at the right-leaning American Action Forum, said in a blog post.
“Nearly $9 of every $10 worth of impacted products belongs to the category of alcoholic beverages, making them the primary target of the ban, Jensen said. The move comes after some Canadian provinces pulled U.S.-made alcohol off of liquor store shelves, crimping sales for American producers.
“The list of banned alcoholic products includes beer, wine, whiskey, vodka, rum and brandy.”
Liberal tears are not included. Drink up.
Crown Royal isn’t the only Canadian company moving to where its customers are—south of the Canadian border.
The Toronto Star reported on GoliathTech, a manufacturer of helical screw piles, moved from Quebec to Ohio to avoid the tariffs Trump imposed on Canada. In other words, his plan is working as intended.
The United States is moving on. About 3% of our economy involves Canada.
23% of Canada’s GDP involves the USA.
And 76% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the U.S. border.
Only 12% of Americans live that close to Canada.
It’s not a trade war. It is Mark Carney giving assisted suicide to his country’s economy.
We are watching great events unfold daily. The bad guys everywhere are playing chicken with Trump. They are dreaming to think he will blink first. What will they do when they wake up November 4th and Trump still holds the legislature?
Pulling Kentucky bourbon off the shelf looks tough until your own distillers lose access to American customers. I applaud Trump for refusing to let American producers become convenient targets for Canadian political theater. A trading partnership requires something better than demanding access to our market while shutting our products out of yours. Carney and the provincial leaders should spend less time performing defiance and more time negotiating terms their businesses can survive. I want American distillers selling abroad, hiring workers, and expanding production. Trump’s pressure should serve that objective. Don has the politics right: patriotic applause cannot pay a distillery’s payroll.