A Canadian Company’s Tariff ‘Double Whammy’ Highlights Trouble for the Economy

While the Trump administration advances a commercial war with global consequences, the Kun shoulder factory in the Canadian capital does not stand out immediately as a first line.

A family -run company that operates from a Labirinthian Victorian house in the center of Ottawa, Kun produces ergonomic rests used by violinists from New York to Berlin.

“We are operating in this rarefinated world of mainly orchestral strings tools,” said Juliana Farha, 58 years old, director of the company. “If you play the violin, you know. And if you don’t, it’s just a strange widget you have never heard of.”

Yet that widget is among the countless products that face the perspective of the rates created by the Trump Administration in the name of the strengthening of American industrial fortunes. Even before the rates have effect, the company managers are climbing to configure the backup plans. The interruption highlights the interconnected effects of commercial conflicts, a primary source of concern for Global economy.

The 25 % rates that President Trump threatened to impose on Canadian imports to endanger Kun’s sales in the United States, the destination for over a third of its products. THE retaliation withdrawals The Canadian government could impose this risk to increase costs for one of its main ingredients, a specialized nylon created by an American company.

“We would be affected by a double Whammy,” said Mrs. Farha.

What is more difficult for her to accept is those who benefit from the upheaval. Not an American brand that could earn a greater share of the market, but rather Chinese companies that produce raw imitations of Kun products, often halfway through the price. Its solitary American competitor produces its products in Taiwan.

“This is the idiot of everything,” he said. “There is no rest on the shoulder in the United States I am aware. There is a huge market for Chinese copies.”

Mrs. Farha had not imagined to spend time contemplating the implications of the rates. His company was launched by the stepfather, a manufacturer of violins who arrived in Ottawa as part of an exodus of emigrants from his native Czechoslovakia after the suppression of Prague’s spring in the late 1960s. Initially, he earned a living repairing rope instruments for musicians from the National Arts Center, an organization of show arts. In the early 1970s, he had a patented version of the shoulder rest.

The activity has grown largely on the promise of international trade, through agreements with distributors in Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Germany and Austria.

In all the United States, music schools have generated sales. A North American regional commercial agreement has allowed Kun to send its products beyond the border without duties.

Mr. Trump targeted this agreement directly on the first day of his new mandate, threatening the rates of 25 percent on all imports from Canada. At the beginning of February, he had paused those measures, citing a reiteration of Promises from the Canadian government To give a more difficult look at the safety of borders, and in particular to the flow of Fenanil.

But on March 4, Mr. Trump briefly followed the Canadian rates on the other side before Exempting Products Considered in accordance with the terms of the North American commercial agreement that signed with a lot of fanfare during his first term. Its terms allow sales of duty-free goods that use specific minimal percentages of parts and raw materials made within the region.

That spared Kun’s shoulder, which are made of Canada with materials almost entirely within the region. But he left Mrs. Farha who breastfeeds a bad case of concerns about what could happen later.

“These 25 %threatened rates, which would cover our products, would be catastrophic for us,” he said. “It’s a nightmare.”

Her greatest American wholesaler recently told her that the Trump administration rates scheduled for Wednesday seem unlikely to cover Kun’s products. But because, exactly, and what logic will prevail in the future are questions without satisfying the answers. Everything seems subject to changes on the whim of an American president notoriously impulsive.

“I have not been able to understand alone what has a suspension now,” said Mrs. Farha.

And even if the next wave of rates from Washington leaves the shoulder not touched, the retaliation rates outlined by the Canadian government could force it to pay 25 percent more for the key parts.

All this makes it anxious to align alternatives.

He found a nylon supplier in Europe, but he will sell anything less than a complete value of containers, what is a five -year supply for Kun. This would fill the warehouse while forcing the company to point out extra costs.

Kun buys his packaging from a Canadian supplier, but the document comes from the United States. Even there, Mrs. Farha is exploring alternatives.

In recent weeks, his 10 employees have started working two hours earlier and have worked on weekends to accumulate inventory that can be sent to the United States before any rate has effect. Whenever it is.

“Damocles’ sword hangs over our heads,” said Mrs. Farha. “The problem for us is uncertainty. This is toxin from my point of view.”