Alex Rodrigues
Appearances
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
So now what will happen to all of the delicious, perfect Arkansas pecans sitting in Alex's freezer? That's after the break. So Alex Rodriguez has been stockpiling American nuts to get ready for the oncoming tariffs. But now she has another big problem.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
These native pecans grow near where Kansas meets Oklahoma meets Missouri meets Arkansas. And they're sold by a woman in Arkansas named Shirley Rallo. She says, That land is a great place to grow these nuts.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
So she's like, this is Brad and his family who grow the pistachios you all love in California. And let me tell you a little bit about Shirley, my pecan supplier in Arkansas. Alex is thinking, if I just introduce them, my customers will love them as much as I do.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Yeah, some people did not appreciate that newsletter. And not just that. Did you notice a hit to your sales?
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Yeah, really. Regular Canadians decided to retaliate against Trump's policies, too. But in effect, that meant that they had to fight against Alex, a Canadian, and her business decisions. It's a weird position for Canadians to be put in. And we wanted to hear their side of the story, how they are making these decisions about how to fight in the trade war.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
But obviously, we were most interested to see what was happening at Alex's nut hut. Were people boycotting American nuts, too?
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
And she told us something interesting about how tariffs are affecting politics, within Canada. First, you know, trade barriers are not just a thing between Canada and the US. There are also trade barriers within Canada, like between the different Canadian provinces and territories.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
But now, there is the political will. These tariffs are acting like a great unifier in Canada, bringing Canadians together against a common enemy, the U.S. The Canadian government says that interprovincial trade is really big, worth about 20% of the country's GDP. So they are busy removing those trade barriers. They think it could add up to $200 billion to the Canadian economy.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Yeah, it's hard to tell if something is really Canadian. Like maybe something was processed and bagged in Canada, but grown somewhere else. Or maybe it's packaged in Canada, but not actually owned by a Canadian company. In those cases, is it really Canadian or is it just maple washing? Elvezio says it's not always easy to tell. Makes it hard to figure out what he wants to buy.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Right, because many of Nuthut's customers were already trying to use their Canadian dollars to buy local or buy organic or protect the environment. Now adding buy Canadian only to their list is one more criteria in an already oblique world of international trade. Like, it's hard to choose which issue matters most.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
You cannot find these nuts in most grocery stores. Shirley says grocery store pecans are likely coming from Georgia.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
I'm like, oh, they seem to be just fully recovered again. She did lose some customers who definitely do not want American nuts. But she actually gained new customers, too, who are also trying to boycott the U.S. because her almonds are not from California. They are from Australia. And her hazelnuts are from Canada. Great for Buy Canadian.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Today's episode was produced by Sylvie Douglas and edited by Sally Helm. It was engineered by Sina Lofredo and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. I'm Sarah Gonzalez. And I'm Amanda Aranchik. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
So Shirley, the pecan supplier in Arkansas, ships Alex at Nuthut in Vancouver a little box of these special native pecans to try. And Alex is really impressed. Shirley's right. They taste fantastic. So Alex starts importing Shirley's pecans everywhere. into Canada. And they've been working together ever since.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Alex's relationships with her suppliers and farmers are really important to her.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Because, yes, the U.S. put tariffs on Canada, but then Canada put retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. So Alex in Canada, Shirley in the U.S., they are caught in the middle of a trade war. They've built up trust, which is a really valuable thing in business. But now it might become impossible for them to work together to import and export to each other.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Amanda Aronchik. And I'm Sarah Gonzalez. First, President Trump announced tariffs. Then there were retaliatory tariffs and so-called reciprocal tariffs for countries around the world. But now those have been mostly paused. Just paused. This is still an escalating trade war. And Canada has had a little bit of a head start here.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
They started figuring out how to deal with the tariffs a couple months ago.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
And Alex Rodrigues, she owns the Nut Hut, right? Not the only walnuts and hazelnuts hut. She wants to offer more than just that. So she imports her nuts locally. From all over the world. She gets her almonds from Australia, her cashews from Indonesia, macadamia nuts from Kenya. But importing from the U.S.?
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
So in January, hours after he was inaugurated, President Trump said that he would soon put tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico. And Alex took notice right away. At first, it was a 25% tariff on all goods coming into the U.S. Then that was paused. Then it was started. Then there was an exemption for things covered by the trade deal USMCA, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
They put the Canada first. Amanda is Canadian. Thank you for that clarification. Canada goes first. It has been chaos. But luckily, whenever Alex has questions about importing stuff into Canada, she has an expert that she can turn to.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
So Ray's company is in Ontario. He deals with clients who are importing into Canada, mostly from the U.S.,
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Yeah, so he calculates what the Canadian motorcycle importer has to pay. Ray sends the motorcycle importer a bill. The importer pays Ray. And then Ray sends the money to the Canada Border Service Agency. That's how it works.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Nuthut is like a specialty shop. Alex sells just nuts, seeds, chocolate, and dried fruit, mostly from small, sustainably run farms. And finding those farmers is one of the main things she focuses on.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Ray helps Alex navigate the tariffs as they unfold. So here's how it plays out. Once the tariffs are scheduled to kick in, Canada decided to fight back. Like, you put tariffs on us, we're going to put tariffs on you. And that's usually how it goes, the tit for tat. Though recently, some countries have said that they are not going to retaliate against the U.S., like Australia. Yeah.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
We asked the Department of Finance Canada whether that was what was going on. And Deputy Spokesperson Marie-France Fauché told us in a statement that there were a number of factors that they use when deciding which goods to tariff, including, quote, maximizing pressure on the U.S. administration.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Oh, the pecans. Pistachios and walnuts were not on the list, but Canada did put retaliatory tariffs on U.S. pecans, and they were going to kick in at the beginning of March. So Ray had a piece of advice for Alex.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Yeah, like maybe walnuts would be hit with tariffs in April or May or never. Unclear. So first, walnuts. She could source them from somewhere else, maybe Eastern Europe. But of course, she already knows and trusts her walnut farmer. So she buys a bunch of walnuts from her regular farmer, gets them shipped over the border, and puts them in cold storage. I defer to what our farmers say.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Next up, pistachios. And this one is high stakes because if retaliatory tariffs ever do kick in for pistachios, Alex isn't sure she could afford to buy them at all.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
And back in 2020, she makes an amazing find. She's looking on Etsy, trying to find a gift for her kid. And for whatever reason, probably because she runs a nut business, she comes across a page selling what are known as native pecans. And she's curious about them. So she reaches out to the seller and learns that these pecans are from a really special place.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
Yeah, it's not like food can grow faster just because tariffs might be coming, right? So Alex just has to like hope, hope, hope that pistachios don't come into the line of fire while she waits.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
a year's supply. Alex actually pays to rent some more cold storage, which is cheaper than paying a 25% tax on pecans. This is one way she can assert some control. But a lot of this is out of her hands. Like the exchange rate between the Canadian dollar and the American dollar, that's already hurting her.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
This could be Alex's last order of Shirley's special native pecans. And for Shirley, the supplier, the tariffs mean that she's rethinking her long-term plans. She says that over the past few years, she had gotten a lot of support and encouragement from the state of Arkansas to get into the export business. She attended webinars and meetings with trade groups.
Planet Money
Trade war dispatch from Canada
But... As Alex is running around securing this stockpile, Canadians have been getting increasingly angry at the U.S. Not only is Trump threatening to pile on tariffs, he also keeps talking about making Canada the 51st state.