Irving Oil warned New England customers over the weekend that President Trump's tariffs on Canada, if enacted, would immediately be passed on to their heating bill, flying in the face of the commander-in-chief's vow to bring down consumer prices.
The tariff cost, or tax as the Canadian company rightly called the duty, would be added to the remainder of their customers' contracts, Irving Energy said in a letter dated Sunday and posted by Dartmouth College professor Douglas Irwin on X. The company serves households and businesses in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
"This tariff will result in price increases for our US customers and have impacts on energy security and the broader economy," the company posted on its website.
Trump on Friday said 25% duties on Canada (10% on its energy imports) and Mexico and 10% tariffs on China would take effect on Tuesday. He has since delayed the tariffs on Mexico for one month.
Economists had long warned that if the US enacted tariffs, Americans would end up paying higher prices — not the countries the levies are imposed on — but Trump repeatedly said on the campaign trail that would not be the case.
Read more: What are tariffs, and how do they affect you?
On Sunday, though, the president acknowledged in a social media post that Americans may feel "some pain" before his promised Golden Age returns.
The possibility of increased heating costs couldn't come at a worse time for New Englanders, during one of the busiest months of the year for heating demand, Matt Cota, the managing director of Meadow Hill, an energy consulting firm in Vermont, told Yahoo Finance. Many of these northern states depend on energy imported from Canada.
Quebec provides about a quarter of Vermont's hydro power, a third of its heating oil, kerosene, propane, diesel fuel, and gasoline, and 100% of its piped natural gas, Cota said.
While southern Vermont could bring in cheaper fuel from Albany if the tariffs go into effect, the northern counties "are wholly dependent on transports from Quebec on fuel," he said.
"This is how we have coexisted. Quebec is a valued trading partner," he said. "We're being caught in the middle of a squeeze we did not ask for and we do not need."
On Sunday, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) noted how her state also relies on its northern neighbor in an X post.
"The Maine economy is integrated with Canada, our most important trading partner…For example, 95 percent of the heating oil used by most Mainers to heat their homes comes from refineries in Canada," she wrote.