The Maine Republican’s objection centers on the everyday supply chains that cross the northern border. Her Senate-floor remarks show how a national tariff fight can land on households, employers and small businesses close to Canada.
Sen. Susan Collins criticized President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, calling the policy a mistake because of the potential damage to Maine families, jobs and businesses. In a Senate-floor speech backing a resolution to end the emergency declaration used for the tariffs, the Maine Republican argued that Canada is too deeply woven into her state’s economy for the added import costs to be treated as an abstract trade dispute.
Collins said she shares Trump’s goal of stopping fentanyl trafficking, but disputes using emergency powers to impose tariffs on Canadian goods. Her argument puts a sharp question at the center of the debate: whether tariffs designed to pressure a close ally can solve a border-security problem without raising costs and disrupting industries on the U.S. side of the border.
Collins targets the emergency rationale
Trump’s Canada tariffs were tied to an emergency declaration that cited Canada’s alleged failure to do enough to stop illegal drugs from reaching the United States. Collins spoke in support of a resolution introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., that would overturn that declaration.
Her position is notable because it combines agreement with the administration’s stated concern and opposition to its chosen tool. Collins praised stronger action against fentanyl but said she did not agree with invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to levy tariffs on Canadian products.
The senator’s core factual challenge concerns the northern border’s role in the fentanyl crisis. Citing fiscal year 2024 seizure data, Collins said less than 1% of fentanyl seizures occurred at the northern border. She also said Canadian authorities have been working with the U.S. government on trafficking enforcement.
That does not settle the wider policy argument about border enforcement. It does explain why Collins views broad tariffs on a neighboring country as poorly matched to the specific problem the administration identified.
Maine’s cross-border economy is the issue
For Collins, the consequences begin with the unusual degree of economic integration between Maine and Canada. She described Canada as Maine’s most important trading partner and named products that touch daily life: heating oil, gasoline, jet fuel, refined petroleum products, paper inputs, fertilizer and seafood.
Tariffs are paid by importers, but the costs can travel through the supply chain. A company facing a higher cost for a Canadian input may absorb it, pass it to a customer, scale back purchases or revise investment plans. The eventual effect depends on the product, existing contracts, competition and whether an alternative supplier is available.
That is why Collins focused less on a broad trade balance and more on local dependence. In her account, the tariffs could reach consumers through fuel bills and food prices while hitting employers that rely on materials that routinely cross the border.
Supporters of tariffs generally argue that they can create leverage in negotiations, encourage domestic production and respond to unfair conduct or national-security concerns. Collins’s rebuttal is that, in Maine’s case, the near-term costs may fall on American workers and businesses before any intended policy benefit materializes.
Paper, fuel and farms face exposure
Collins pointed to the Twin Rivers paper mill in Madawaska, Maine, as a vivid example of a supply chain that does not stop neatly at the border. Raw pulp is piped across the St. John River from Edmundston, New Brunswick, to the Maine mill, she said.
The facility produces lightweight specialty paper used in packaging, newspapers, retail catalogs, restaurant products and other goods. Collins said a tariff on that pulp could threaten the mill’s financial health and its more than 500 rural northern Maine jobs, along with related work for truck drivers and local businesses.
Energy is another pressure point. Collins said 95% of the heating oil used by most Mainers comes from Canadian refineries. She also said Irving Oil, a Canadian-based company, has 150 gas stations in Maine and supplies two-thirds of the state’s gasoline, diesel and heating oil, as well as all jet fuel used at the Air National Guard base in Bangor.
Those figures underscore why the tariff debate is especially sensitive in a state with cold winters and limited distance between suppliers and consumers. If Canadian energy costs rise at import, the question is not only what happens to a trade statistic; it is who bears the increase in a home-heating budget, at the gas pump or in a business’s operating costs.
Food producers cannot easily reroute
Collins also described agriculture and seafood as sectors where Canadian inputs and processing capacity are already built into the business model. According to the Maine Potato Board figures she cited, 90% of the potash used by Maine potato growers is imported from Canada, while fertilizer accounts for 11% of total input costs for growing potatoes.
She said a farmer from Mars Hill had already reported higher prices for seed and equipment amid the tariff threat. The example matters because farm operations often plan purchases well before harvest, leaving little room to suddenly replace essential fertilizer or machinery inputs.
Processing creates another complication. Collins said some potato products move between facilities in Maine and Canada with specialized roles, such as making hash browns or curly fries. In seafood, she said Maine sends between $200 million and $400 million in lobster to Canada annually for processing, while Canada has 240 lobster-processing plants compared with 15 in the United States.
Collins said she supports more manufacturing in Maine and the U.S. But she argued that imposing tariffs before equivalent domestic capacity exists could punish lobstermen and consumers rather than smoothly moving production across the border. That distinction is central to the broader tariff debate: building local capacity can be a long-term objective, while price shocks can arrive immediately.
Tourism adds a less visible cost
The cross-border relationship is not limited to cargo. Collins said Maine tourism businesses were seeing cancellations from Canadian visitors who have long vacationed in the state. She pointed to Old Orchard Beach as one place known for its Canadian tourists.
Tourism effects are difficult to separate from currency movements, consumer confidence and personal travel decisions. Still, Collins’s warning highlights a consequence often left out of tariff arguments: a tense trade relationship can influence whether people feel welcome spending money across the border.
Her larger message is that border communities experience U.S.-Canada policy through ordinary transactions and personal ties. Families, employers and customers may cross the border routinely, making a confrontation between national governments feel unusually local in Maine.
The resolution leaves key questions open
Collins’s speech supports ending the emergency declaration used to impose the Canada tariffs, but it does not resolve the underlying disagreement over how the U.S. should address fentanyl trafficking or negotiate with Canada. Those are separate policy questions, and lawmakers may agree on one while diverging on the other.
What remains unclear from Collins’s remarks is whether Congress will approve the resolution and how the administration would respond to a successful effort to overturn the emergency declaration. The tariff policy’s precise economic effect would also vary across industries and depend on duration, rates and any exemptions.
For now, Collins has framed the dispute in practical terms: whether a policy intended to advance security goals risks raising costs for the same Americans it is meant to protect. Her case is strongest where the supply chain is most concrete — a pipeline carrying pulp across a river, Canadian fuel heating Maine homes, or lobster moving north for processing before reaching customers.
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