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Trade uncertainty caused by U.S. tariffs both real and threatened has rattled consumer confidence, to the point that volume growth at the Port of Vancouver will suffer, says its chief executive.
Peter Xotta, CEO of the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, forecast that cargo numbers will rise four to five per cent this year following a record-breaking 2024, but stressed “heightened uncertainty” is dampening the current economic mood.
“Make no mistake, tariffs like this hurt everybody,” Xotta said in a phone interview Monday.
“That uncertainty then results in delays in decisions, whether it’s investments or operating plans or other forms of investment in people and productive capacity.”
U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 25 per cent duties on most Canadian imports last week, only to roll back those on items covered by the North American free trade pact until April 2.
A 25 per cent steel and aluminum tariff is still poised to take effect Wednesday.
Canada has hit back with retaliatory tariffs of 25 per cent on $30 billion worth of imported American goods, with a second round on other products worth $125 billion slated for next month.
The Bank of Canada and numerous economists have predicted that a drawn-out trade war would trigger a recession north of the border.
“We expect that it will impact overall GDP, and thus consumer confidence,” Xotta said. “The damage has been done already.”
In spite of the instability wrought by Trump’s bumpy tariff rollout, Xotta said the coming year looks “fairly positive for Canada” — just less so than it would were a trade war not in full swing.
January and February saw the country “on a tear,” Xotta said, as companies rushed to ship products and stock up their inventories ahead of tariff deadlines, which have shifted several times since Trump first levelled the threat in the days after his election victory in November.
The boost built on a productive year on the waterfront. The Port of Vancouver moved a record amount of goods through its gates in 2024, an increase fuelled largely by surging oil exports enabled by the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
Total freight at the country’s biggest port grew five per cent year-over-year to reach 158 million tonnes in 2024, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority said Monday.
Crude oil exports climbed 527 per cent thanks to the Trans Mountain expansion that began operations on May 1.
The project twinned the existing pipeline and nearly tripled its capacity at a total cost of $34 billion. The line extends from a storage terminal in Edmonton to the Rockies before winding southwest to a terminal in Burnaby, B.C.
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