When U.S.-Canada trade talks collapsed for good last Friday night, the recriminations broke out almost instantly, and not just between Washington and Ottawa. In Maine, Vermont and Michigan—three states with outsized economic exposure to Canada—elected officials from both parties and the executives who run the region’s largest employers have spent the past week saying, in various ways, the same thing: enough.
The latest escalation came Monday, when U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CNBC’s Squawk Box Canada was to blame for the breakdown, saying negotiators had reached the outline of a deal by Tuesday night only for Ottawa to add last-minute demands.
“In the last hours, I think there were things that the Canadians just—you know, they wanted more,” Greer said.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has offered the mirror-image account, saying the U.S. side introduced “last-minute changes” to proposed terms that were “unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.”
Politico‘s reporting on the 72 hours before the deal cratered found the dispute came down to a central sticking point: U.S. tariff rates on heavy-duty trucks, which Canadian negotiators pushed to lower late in the process, though U.S. officials also cited internal turf wars and Carney pointed to American refusal to extend auto-tariff relief to medium- and heavy-duty trucks. The practical result was the same regardless of which account is right: 50% U.S. tariffs on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods took effect at 12:01 a.m. Aug. 22, and Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper and electronics are set to hit Sept. 8.
Maine’s senators, from opposite parties, agree
Maine’s congressional delegation has been unusually unified for a state represented by one Republican and one independent who caucuses with Democrats. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican facing a competitive reelection race this fall, called the tariffs “a mistake” in an interview with News Center Maine, adding she’d recently met with Canada’s ambassador to press on dairy trade barriers and still wants “the very friendly, economically beneficial relationship” restored.
On social media, Collins urged “both sides to return to the negotiating table,” writing on X the on-again/off-again trade talks between the U.S. and Canada lead to “higher costs, risk, and uncertainty for Maine businesses.”
Sen. Angus King, the state’s independent senator who caucuses with Democrats, has focused on the lobster industry specifically, warning Canada’s coming 25% tariff on lobster—which takes effect alongside the broader Sept. 8 retaliation—could be compounded if Trump imposes a reciprocal charge on the processed product when it re-enters the U.S.
“If the president’s misguided trade war further escalates, the processed lobsters could be taxed again when they are shipped back from Canada to the United States,” King said, noting almost half of Maine’s fall lobster catch goes to Canada for processing.
Collins raised the same underlying vulnerability months earlier in a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, telling Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Maine’s meat, blueberries, potatoes, lobster, and lumber are largely processed across the border—testimony Lutnick answered by pointing to USMCA rules governing which goods qualify for tariff-free treatment.
Vermont’s governor: consistent from the start
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, has been arguably Trump’s most consistent GOP critic on this specific issue, repeating a version of the same warning through every phase of the standoff.
In July, Scott said flatly: “My feelings on punitive tariffs imposed on Canada have not changed over the last two years and are simply a bad idea that will lead to increased costs on Vermonters.”
When the administration briefly paused the tariffs in mid-August, Scott called it a hopeful sign, while noting Vermont still had “a long ways to go to rebuild this relationship with our friends in the north.”
When the pause lapsed and the tariffs took effect anyway, Scott’s tone hardened further: “The Trump tariffs are basically taxes—they raise costs for families, farmers and employers on both sides of the border and strain a relationship that has made both countries stronger and more secure,” he said in a statement in late August.
Vermont’s exposure explains the persistence: Canada is Vermont’s largest export market by a wide margin, accounting for 31% of the state’s total goods exports in 2025—more than double its next-largest market, according to the U.S. Trade Representative.
Michigan’s governor and the Big Three close ranks
No governor has been louder than Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who has criticized the tariffs since shortly after they were first imposed in February 2025 and escalated her rhetoric as the fight dragged on for roughly a year and a half.
“It is a blunt tool. You can’t just pull out the tariff hammer to swing at every problem without a clear defined end-goal,” Whitmer said in an April 2025 speech, warning tariffs risked economic “paralysis.” In an October 2025 keynote address delivered in Canada, Whitmer said tariffs put 1.2 million Michigan jobs at risk, citing the additional 25% tariff already in place on foreign-made auto parts.
Whitmer renewed the attack this week after talks collapsed, posting on X. on Aug. 22 Michigan residents were “uniquely impacted by DC Republicans’ ongoing, chaotic tariff wars with Canada,” and that the tariffs amounted to “a tax hike on Michigan families and businesses by raising prices at the grocery store and the gas pump.”
Detroit’s automakers have made the same case largely through industry channels and public disclosures. Canada has toughened its own countermeasures against U.S.-based automakers that scaled back Canadian production, cutting the tariff-free import quota for Stellantis by 50% and for GM by 24.2%. Trump has since announced a 50% U.S. tariff on Canadian vehicles, trucks, auto parts and steel set to take effect Jan. 1, 2027—an escalation from the current 25% rate.
Ford and General Motors declined to comment on the situation when contacted by Fortune.
Carney, for his part, used remarks this weekend to frame the moment in starker terms than any previous point in the dispute, saying the country was “at war” with the U.S. economically. Greer has continued to defend the administration’s account publicly, saying Canada introduced new demands and walked back other commitments in the final hours before the deal collapsed.
The through line connecting Augusta, Montpelier, and Lansing is none of this was requested by the states most exposed to it—and officials in all three, across party lines, have been saying so since the fight began. What’s changed is the tone. Collins, Scott, and Whitmer spent much of the past year and a half framing their objections as cautionary. This week, after a second round of tariffs actually took effect and a retaliation date is locked in for Sept. 8, all three sounded less like they were warning of a risk and more like they were describing a loss already sustained.
For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
