Tariffs and their threats changing by the minute, says head of EDL

By Lethbridge Herald on May 29, 2025.

Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman Trevor Lewington, CEO of Economic Development Lethbridge talks about the impact of tariffs and trade on Southern Alberta during SACPA Thursday at the Lethbridge Senior Citizens Organization.

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman
Lethbridge Herald

A Canadian company in Lethbridge that manufactures goods to sell to the United States are most likely except from tariffs because they are under a free trade compliance agreement, says the CEO of Economic Development Lethbridge. But if any of the parts used to manufacture those goods are from anywhere else in the world, that is no longer going to be considered manufacturing. 

“What the Trump administration is trying to do is to drive manufacturing back to the United States, so by changing the definition from assembly to transformation, you can exclude entire industries from that exception,” said Trevor Lewington, speaking Thursday to the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs. 

He said “forget tariffs,” it’s the fine print in the legislation, the fine print on how trade works, that could seriously undermine where Canadian businesses go from here. 

Lewington spoke about the ever-changing list of tariffs coming from U.S. President Donald Trump. The situation has been changing, sometimes hourly, to the point where Lewington has given previous presentations and new information and changes have actually come through his email while he was speaking. 

There’s a whole list of tariffs that have been implemented, a list of tariffs that have been threatened, and another list of tariffs that are under consideration. 

“The one that should scare everybody is a threat against film and television production,” said Lewington. “Trump has threatened a 100 per cent tariff on foreign produced or foreign shot movies, films and television projects.”

That’s a concern in Southern Alberta as it could set an enormous precedent, as film and television production is basically considered a service, not a good. 

“This will be the first time a tariff is being used against services,” he said, “and if they figure out a way to do that, think about what could come next. Consulting, engineering, investment banking – there could be a whole new front in this trade war.”

All that is subject to change, and in fact, on Wednesday night, the U.S. Court for International Trade unanimously ruled against the Trump administration. It also said that Trump has overstepped his legal authority. 

“That doesn’t address the national security tariffs, and it doesn’t address the tariffs that are related to sectors like steel and aluminum, but to have a court very clearly, unanimously tell the president that he is out of line, is a good first step,” said Lewington. 

For Alberta, oil and gas are the two things that matter the most, he said. Even though his job is to find ways to diversify the local economy, when talking about the Alberta economy, the province is still fundamentally dependent on it. 

“About 96 per cent of it goes to the United States, so there is no way out of this unless we are talking about infrastructure like pipelines, because you cannot diversify the market, when all the infrastructure points south.”

Lewington pointed out that the Canadian Chamber of Commerce identified this as an issue as well and Lethbridge was ranked the tenth most vulnerable city in the country to be impacted by tariffs. Lethbridge is vulnerable because it is heavily dependent on the U.S. market, which makes it challenging when only having one major costumer. 

“That’s because $2.3 billion worth of goods leave the factories in our region,” he said, “and a lot of it is durable manufactured products and manufactured food. With 90 per cent of that $2.3 billion going to the United States.”

When it comes to diversifying trading partners, Lewington explained that it is not an easy task, as China is the next largest trading partner after the U.S. and that country’s relationship with Alberta has been problematic for several years. 

“But even if Lethbridge manufactures found a trading partner in Europe or Asia, how do they physically get their products from Lethbridge to market?” He asked. “Railways are at capacity, truck transportation has limit capacity, and if you ever visit the port in Vancouver, there is not a lot more we can shove through there.”

He said one thing that Canada as a whole needs to do to find ways to get out of the dependency on United States for trading purposes, is to cultivate and mend relationships with countries like China and India, who are some of the major markets in the world.