With Canada and Mexico as Pa.’s top trade partner, Gov. Josh Shapiro says Trump’s tariff plan ‘makes no sense’
“I don’t know why he did it. But we’re going to see a real effect of his policies, and the effect is going to be higher prices for Pennsylvanians.”
HARRISBURG — Gov. Josh Shapiro criticized President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on almost all imports from Mexico and Canada as picking “a fight with our friends” and warned that they will result in higher prices for Pennsylvania residents.
Shapiro, a first-term Democrat leading the nation’s fifth most populous state, said Trump’s decision to wage a trade war against the United States’ neighboring countries was a mistake. Instead, he said he believes the country should be strengthening its relationships with them, both of which are Pennsylvania’s top export destinations.
“It makes no sense,” Shapiro said. “I don’t know why he did it. But we’re going to see a real effect of his policies, and the effect is going to be higher prices for Pennsylvanians.”
Since Trump’s inauguration, Shapiro has infrequently — but strategically — criticized Trump and his administration’s actions that are upending Washington, D.C., without criticizing the people who voted for him in a state where Trump won by more than 120,000 votes.
Shapiro is among the many Democrats still trying to figure out their approach to Trump’s second presidency as he manages his own upcoming 2026 reelection campaign and his image as a Democratic front-runner to run for president in 2028.
But on Wednesday outside a job fair in Harrisburg, Shapiro was willing to criticize Trump’s tariff announcement and his lengthy speech to a joint session of Congress.
“I think it’s important that a president address the nation,” Shapiro said. “But I also think it’s important that a president tell the truth, which we didn’t hear a whole lot of truth-telling last night.”
Shapiro made the remarks following his signing of an executive order directing state agencies to give hiring preference to fired federal employees, likened to the preference already given to applicants with state experience, to fill the state’s 5,600 open jobs.
Pennsylvania exported $14.5 billion worth of goods to Canada in 2024 or 27% of its total exports, making it the state’s largest export market. Mexico was the state’s second-largest trade partner, with the state exporting more than $5 billion in goods to it.
Shapiro said he was particularly concerned about how the tariffs will affect Pennsylvania dairy farmers, who sell more dairy products to Mexico than any other country. He also noted potential increases to vehicle manufacturing costs and consumers hoping to buy them from tariffs on Canada’s aluminum industry, although the Trump administration noted later Wednesday that it would exempt some of the tariffs for automakers for a month.
Trump, in his speech to Congress Tuesday night, conceded there will be “a little bit of an adjustment period” for farmers at the start of the tariff implementation, set for April 2, and noted a similar period during his first term in a trade deal with China.
“I said, ‘Just bear with me,’” Trump said of America’s farmers. “And they did. They did. Probably have to bear with me again. And this will be even better.”
It’s not the first strategic fight Shapiro has picked with the Republican president.
The governor was outspoken in his criticism of a Trump administration directive to withhold a wide swath of federal grant funding and has mounted a lawsuit over $2 billion in federal funds that were frozen by Trump, mostly for environmental projects.