The trade war is hurting Canadian queer businesses

It’s been around six months since Kelly Blenus’s small business, Resting Pride Face, has sold anything to the United States.

Blenus, a Halifax-based artist who makes Pride-themed accessories, stickers and paintings, said the reason for that is simple: U.S.-imposed tariffs and rising trade tensions have made selling across the border “borderline impossible.”

“When I started, my sales were primarily to the U.S., but now I basically sell almost nothing,” she says. “Unfortunately, many of my online customers were in the U.S. I’ve put tons of work into my online shop, but the bulk of my work comes from in-person markets now, because online business is just becoming too difficult.”

Blenus isn’t alone. At the end of August, U.S. president Donald Trump imposed a new round of tariffs on Canadian goods, widening the swaths of Canadian products that will be subject to hefty import fees effective next week. Canadian business owners selling to U.S. customers could face fees as high as 50 percent hitting their goods as they cross the border.

There are additional tariffs on other imports like steel and aluminum, which will continue to have knock-on effects on supply-chain costs for manufacturers. Earlier this week, Trump announced the ban on imports of certain Canadian goods, including Canadian alcohol.

In response, Canada has hit the U.S. with counter-tariffs on nearly $30 billion worth of U.S. products, matching U.S. tariffs on each product. 

Liana Georgiewa, chief operating officer at the Canadian Queer Chamber of Commerce (CQCC), says that though the ongoing trade disputes are leaving queer business owners in the country feeling uneasy, it’s also a time for entrepreneurs to take stock of potential opportunities. As a non-profit organization, the CQCC advocates for LGBTQ2S+ entrepreneurs and businesses across Canada, delivering resources like training programs and managing accreditation initiatives to connect consumers with queer-friendly businesses.

“I believe the tariffs are actually not just a challenge but something that has great potential for us,” she says. “It’s a chance to unlock the potential that already exists here.” 

The CQCC this week published the results of a new survey, conducted among its member organizations. 

Georgiewa says it is evident that businesses are worried—which makes sense, given that almost 70 percent of respondents said that the U.S. market is important to their business.

“People don’t want to lose their customers because of high-level political decisions being made,” she says. “It’s very real that U.S.-Canadian relationships have developed over many years and that they’re still an important source of growth and opportunity.”

The CQCC found that nearly 90 percent of respondents expected moderate, significant or severe financial impacts on their business as a result of the tariffs, with almost 60 percent expecting reduced sales or revenue and almost 50 percent expecting increased operating costs and cash flow pressures.

But while the uncertainties about tariffs could fundamentally change the long-standing relationship between the U.S. and Canada, Georgiewa says that now could be the time to look at new opportunities for trade elsewhere.

She says that the CQCC survey found that businesses were eager to explore the potential for new partnerships, and that finding connections to new customers outside of the U.S. was one of the most-requested forms of assistance by respondents. 

“There’s a strong desire for businesses to find practical ways to adapt and grow, and we’re actively looking for market diversification,” she says. “We’re going on global trade missions, because there are more countries to partner with and more economies to collaborate with than only the U.S.”

The CQCC will be taking part in international trade missions to build connections in cities including London, Madrid, Mexico City, Amsterdam and Tokyo. Georgiewa emphasizes the potential of trade opportunities happening with countries like Germany in the future.

“I really feel like this is a moment where Canada can play a bigger role geopolitically, and since the Canadian queer economy is already so strong, I believe they should play a key role in this moment as well,” she says. 

@xtramagazine A brand-new LGBTQ2S+ Canadian national monument is set to be unveiled in Ottawa this week. Officially named Thunderhead, the monument serves as a space to commemorate and reflect the hardships, experiences and achievements of queer and trans people in Canada. The main structure is a 30-foot-tall cylinder, with the imprint of a thundercloud hollowed out of its centre. The interior is lined with thousands of mirrored tiles, meant to invoke disco balls while reflecting and refracting light. The site also includes a garden, stage and a fruit orchard—a nod to the pejorative term “fruit” used to refer to LGBTQ2S+ people and a reference to the “fruit machine” device of the 1950s and 1960s, which supposedly identified homosexuals based on physiological responses. The monument is located in downtown Ottawa near Portage Bridge. The structure is funded from a successful class-action lawsuit against the Government of Canada by survivors of the LGBT Purge—a systematic campaign targeting LGBTQ2S+ members of the RCMP, public service and military in the second half of the 20th century. We break down what you need to know. #lgbtqnews #canada #canadanews #lgbtqhistory #ottawa ♬ original sound – Xtra Magazine

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Georgiewa underlines the power of queer Canadian businesses: more than 120,000 queer-owned businesses in Canada contribute around $86 billion in gross corporate revenue annually, and employ close to half a million people. 

Yet despite the chance for new types of growth, Georgiewa acknowledges the immediate negative effects on businesses, particularly those that service largely U.S. customer bases, and businesses with few employees. She says that it’s common for queer-owned businesses to be small businesses rather than large corporations—86 per cent of respondents in the CQCC survey were small businesses with fewer than 50 employees—and that can mean they have less capacity to navigate difficult financial times. 

“Oftentimes, these kinds of businesses have less flexibility to absorb unexpected costs or revenue disruptions, so the financial impact can be higher,” she says. “The biggest challenge is really the uncertainty around managing costs and what it will mean for their customers and growth.”

Blenus says that as a small business owner, it can be difficult to keep track of every update related to tariffs, particularly while juggling other streams of income and family life. She says that when the first round of tariffs hit in the spring of 2025, she “learned the hard way” how fees could affect her business when she shipped to the U.S. and had to absorb the tariffs herself.

She immediately realized that she’d struggle to make a profit if she kept shipping to the U.S. Since then, she’s had to triple her U.S. shipping prices—and while she offers flat-rate shipping within Canada, she won’t send anything across the border for less than $15. 

“Often, I’d be finding out too late,” she says. “I’d put my calculations in on an app online that would tell me what duty and taxes should be, and then I’d go to ship something and I’d all of a sudden again be out money to ship it. Things are constantly changing.”

For other queer Canadian business owners, shifting their business away from the U.S. isn’t just a decision that’s come about as a result of tariff tensions. Kelsi Morris, owner of Bistitchual yarn store in Toronto, has made exclusively selling Canadian products part of her business model.

“A lot of people buy from the States or elsewhere, and don’t realize how talented Canadian yarn dyers are,” she says. “I really wanted to show people that we don’t necessarily have to buy internationally, we have amazing talent here in Canada.”

While it’s been exciting to see more customers seeking to buy local, Morris says that her business has still been impacted by trade tensions with the U.S. When the first round of tariffs hit last year, she decided to stop offering online shipping to the U.S., and with the recent news of harsher tariffs, she expects that to remain the case for the foreseeable future.

“We took quite a hit,” she says. “It feels bad to have to exclude a larger part of my audience, people who have been supportive of me since the beginning.”

She says the trade tensions don’t just affect her business at the point of sale—she’s often worried about the knock-on effects tariffs have on whether customers even have money to spend.

“It’s a bit bleak, because the cost of living is skyrocketing, and people don’t have expendable income to spend on their hobbies,” Morris says. “But on the other hand, people are trying to make a point of buying Canadian, and people are trying to find ways to escape the horrors of the world, and are turning toward things like fibre crafts. We’re trying to help people find joy, at a time where joy is so important.”

Georgiewa says that finding a way forward means banding together, building solidarity between businesses and pushing for advocacy and representation at the government level.

“We’re looking at a very resilient community, and despite the ongoing tariff uncertainty, our organizations demonstrated a solid level of confidence in their ability to adjust,” she says. “Throughout history, our communities had to find so many ways to adapt and grow, and that goes for large economic situations too. That’s a big strength of our community.”