Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) announced Friday that nine categories of Canadian products “crucial for Maine’s agricultural industries” will be exempted from U.S.
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Trump drops Canada tariffs on blueberries, potatoes and seaweed to boost Collins; every other importer pays in full
As it ran on the front
Nine categories. Not nine industries, not nine hundred tariff lines — nine: paperboard cartons, plastic boxes, refrigeration equipment, cleaning and sorting machinery, packing and wrapping machinery, seaweed and algae products among them.
You will have read that the United States lifted its tariffs on Canada and pictured something general. It is not general. The August tariffs stand. Every other importer in the country owes in full.…
…(cont) The White House found the relief would "better serve the public interest." The public interest, on Friday, was blueberries, potatoes and apples ... in Maine, where a five-term senator is fighting to keep her seat next month. She says she had been working with the White House on tariff relief. She announced the nine categories herself.
The consideration — what was given back for it? The press release does not say. No vote. No repeal. No refund for anybody else. Outside the nine, August holds.
The thaw is in. One hen the farmer carries indoors. The flock, not yet.
“They spent a year telling you the tariffs were a national emergency you had to eat, and then on a Friday six weeks before an election it turns out there's a dial, and it only turns for one state with one senator in trouble. Blueberries, potatoes, seaweed, cardboard boxes — relief exists, it's just not for you. Your boss is still paying the August rate on his crates, and nobody at the White House is taking his call.”
“These are specialized agricultural inputs unavailable from American suppliers, that's straight out of the release, that's not politics, that's supply chains. Is the timing political? Why would you say that — did I say that? That doesn't sound like me. Look, any senator can go work with the White House on relief for their state's farmers; it's just that most of them aren't in a close race, which is, I mean, irrelevant.”
The receipts
Susan Collins, a Republican in a tight race to keep her senate seat in next month's elections, said she had been working with the White House on tariff relief.
Republican senator faces critical re-election battle in state where president’s trade war has outraged voters Donald Trump dropped some of the US’s tariffs on Canada on Friday to “better serve the public interest” the White House said, handing a win to Susan Collins, the embattled Republican senator for Maine, as she faces a tight…
Sen. Susan Collins, who’s in a tough re-election fight, said she secured from the Trump administration tariff exemptions on some agricultural and forestry items.
· Susan Collins blasts US tariffs on Canada: ‘There’s just nothing good you can say about them’ from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
· Jackson, Collins tangle on Canada tariffs: 'We can't eat road salt' from the morgue, 7 Oct 2026
· 'Corruption of the Highest Order,' Says Troy Jackson After Explosive Susan Collins Report from the morgue, 22 Sep 2026
· "Most Stupid Trade Fight in History": U.S. & Canadian Workers Stand to Lose in Trump's New Tariff War from the morgue, 24 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.