Trump's tariffs are unpopular in Maine. A Republican senator may pay the price
If U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs could bring manufacturing back to places it has fled, the town of Millinocket, Maine, ought to be a likely candidate.
Millinocket was for decades a thriving paper mill town, until Great Northern Paper ceased operations in 2008. Its fenced-off property sits abandoned, and although there's a growing outdoor recreation sector in the town of 4,100, its economy has struggled ever since.
Then came a plan, backed in part by Norwegian investors, for a $300 million US aquaculture venture repurposing the giant lagoons on the old mill site, to be called Great Northern Salmon.
"It was a marriage made in heaven," said Gail Fanjoy, the president of the local chamber of commerce. "Out of the gate, they were going to employ 50 people. That's a home run."
The project was about 80 per cent toward completion when the company announced last month it was pausing indefinitely, resting blame squarely on the uncertainty caused by the Trump administration's tariffs. Much of its salmon farming equipment was to be imported from Canada.
"That was a huge, huge, huge blow," Fanjoy told CBC News. "The Norwegian investors just said, 'We're done, we just can't deal with this.'"
Fanjoy, a lifelong resident of Millinocket, says nothing will make her believe Trump's claim that his trade policy will revive manufacturing in places like this.
"It's a fallacy," she said. "Paper companies all up and down the Penobscot River and the state of Maine closed, went bankrupt, and a tariff is not going to bring them back."
Cross-border trade matters to Maine
Maine does $6 billion US in annual two-way commerce with Canada — a significant amount in a state that's less populous than Manitoba.
The trade war is playing out amid a tight race for U.S. Senate in Maine, an election that will help determine which party controls Congress for the second half of Trump's term.
Maine's incumbent Sen. Susan Collins is something of a political phenomenon. The Republican has held her seat for the past 30 years in a place that hasn't voted statewide for a GOP presidential candidate since 1988.
If the Democrats are to win a majority in the Senate in the Nov. 3 midterms, Maine is a seat they'll almost certainly need to flip.
One big question in the race is if Maine voters will punish Collins as a proxy for their antipathy to Trump, whether over the trade war or other issues.
Tim Woodcock, a Bangor lawyer and a staunch backer of Collins, says many businesses have been adversely affected by tariffs, including those on Canadian products.
"These two economies are deeply intertwined," Woodcock told CBC News. "Anybody who is either trying to conduct a business in Maine or is dependent on a business in Maine would be very concerned about all the uncertainty that these tariffs have imposed."
'Canada's our friend'
CBC News spoke with Collins on the weekend as she walked in a parade in Carmel, a town of about 2,900.
Asked how concerned she is that Trump's tariffs will hurt her re-election chances, the 72-year-old senator parried the question.
"I'm much more concerned about the impact on the people of Maine in general. Many of our products, whether it's blueberries or potatoes or timber or lobster, are harvested here but processed in Canada," Collins said.
"Canada's our friend, our neighbour, our biggest trading partner," she added. "I urge the administration to get back to the table and both sides should engage in negotiations."
Among the townspeople lining the parade route was Chris Morang, who shook hands with Collins.
"I love her. She's always voted for helping the people in Maine. She's kept a lot of the hospitals going. She helped the lobster industry a lot," Morang told CBC News.
Although Collins has opposed Trump's trade war, Morang sides with the president.
"I think Canada has taken advantage of the United States a lot," he said. "They had unfair tariffs on us for many, many years, especially on lobster and lumber. I think at this point we're just getting what we deserve."
Collins has often tried to distance herself from Trump and his tariffs.
She was one of only seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Last week, she supported a resolution calling for an end to the war with Iran.
Collins claimed victory this month when the White House lifted tariffs on two imports that Maine relies on from Canada: cement and road salt.
Her opponent, Democrat Troy Jackson, says tariffs are crushing Maine and he's dismissive of Collins' approach.
'Concerned letters' to Trump
"Everything costs more for people, and you can tell it's a big deal because Susan Collins was writing concerned letters to Donald Trump," Jackson told CBC News.
"She got us rock salt back, but we can't eat that."
Both Collins and Jackson grew up in northern Maine, each within a half hour's drive of the Canadian border. But that's where the similarities end.
Collins comes from a prosperous family who owned a lumber yard, and now has a net worth as high as $9.6 million US, according to a Democratic Party analysis of her Congressional financial disclosures.
Jackson was a logger and union activist who jumped into local politics after participating in a border blockade protesting companies bringing lower-paid Canadian loggers into Maine in the late 1990s. If he wins, he'll become the only sitting U.S. senator without a four-year college degree.
During a weekend town hall in the small coastal city of Belfast, Jackson wore a ball cap while talking proudly of his roots in northern Maine and his two decades in local politics.
Jackson replaced Graham Platner
"I speak funny, I know that. I didn't go to the right schools and all that. But what I think people have come to understand is that I am 100 per cent dug in on getting shit done," Jackson said to whoops and cheers from the audience.
Jackson only became the Democrat candidate in July after the original nominee Graham Platner stepped down when a former partner accused him of sexual assault.
John Luft, who came to the town hall from the nearby coastal town of Lincolnville, says Jackson is different from the typical political candidate.
"He actually speaks to what Mainers need right now. He actually gets it," Luft said.
Luft calls the trade war with Canada atrocious.
"I see no reason for this at all," he said. "Canada and United States have been friends forever and that's the way it should be."
Canadian companies have major investments in Maine, notably New Brunswick's Irving family empire with interests in logging, forest products and petroleum.
Despite what polling suggests is widespread opposition to Trump's tariffs among Maine voters, it's only one of the issues at play in the election contest between Jackson and Collins.
Jim Melcher, a political science professor at the University of Maine Farmington, says while both candidates have staked out positions against the trade war, Collins can pitch Mainers on her influence in Washington as a veteran senator and her record of defying Trump.
"In some ways, how this (trade war) has played out may favour her more than Jackson," Melcher told CBC News.
At the same time, Collins is seeking a sixth term from an electorate that Melcher describes as weary of the status quo.
"Certainly Troy Jackson is different, more blue collar, has a different approach to things," he said. "The perception of the economy and the national Republicans, I think, isn't helpful to [Collins] either."
Will the U.S. midterm results affect Trump's tariffs on Canada? Democrats think yes
Maine governor says her state is ‘not the enemy’ in ongoing trade war
Woodcock, the lawyer in Bangor, remains optimistic about Collins' re-election chances given what he calls the long tradition of independent judgment shown by Maine voters.
"They have tended to support, I'd say, the candidates who are willing to reach across the aisle, who are prepared to put the merits of an issue ahead of party," said Woodcock.
In her last election in 2020, Collins defied the anti-Trump wave. Despite polls that suggested she was poised to lose, she defeated her Democrat challenger by nine percentage points. She was the only Republican Senate candidate in the country to win in a state that voted for Joe Biden.
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