‘It’s just getting worse’: anger in Maine over Trump’s trade war with close neighbor Canada

President’s tariffs have hurt fishers, loggers and others in a state with deep bonds to Canada – will voters show their displeasure in the midterms?

The weather in Maine’s Penobscot county – one of the most heavily forested counties in a state dense with trees – was warm and dry. Yet even as the county’s wood had grown to an ideal size to harvest, the machines Molly London typically uses sat idle.

London and her husband, Alex, who started a logging business nearly 10 years ago, had been waiting weeks for replacement machine parts that were no longer stocked locally because tariffs had made them too expensive.

By August, she and her husband decided to shut down their business, WW London Woodlot Management Company, exhausted after years of fighting ever-climbing costs.

“It just didn’t feel right any more,” she said. “We’ve been losing for a long time, and this is just getting worse.”