Canadians have been buying anything-but-American in the juice aisle.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Months into the trade war with the United States, Canadian shoppers continue to bypass American products at the grocery store, sending imports of U.S. orange juice down the drain.
In June, orange juice shipments to Canada cratered to their lowest level in more than two decades, trade data released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday shows.
American OJ became an early target of Canadian shoppers and government officials angered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s 51st-state rhetoric and his campaign of tariffs.
In February, after Mr. Trump first announced tariffs on Canada, former prime minister Justin Trudeau called on Canadians to do their part, which he said might mean “foregoing Florida orange juice altogether.”
Shortly after, Canada revealed the list of U.S. products that would be subject to 25-per-cent countertariffs, and it included unfrozen orange juice.
Prime Minister Mark Carney suggested this week some countertariffs could be removed to support Canadian industry.
The June trade numbers show the counterattack is working, but it’s unclear to what extent the dive in American juice imports is due to Canada’s own duties, which raise the costs of foreign products, or the individual choices of boycotting consumers.
Fruit juice prices have not moved much since the trade war broke out, according to Statistics Canada. In fact, the annual increase in juice prices in June was lower than a year earlier, even as overall price inflation for food purchased from stores inched up. (The agency doesn’t break out individual types of juice in its inflation reports.)
It helps that Canada has boosted orange juice imports from other countries, including Mexico and Brazil, to make up some of the difference.
Still, even though select U.S. sectors such as Florida orange juice, Kentucky bourbon and California wine may feel pain from losing a swath of the Canadian market, it’s unclear whether that has translated into political pressure on the Trump administration to abandon its tariff attacks on Canada.
But for now, Canadians seem content to buy anything-but-American in the juice aisle.
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