The Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, the crossing with the most cross-border trucking, in February 2008 · Barb Crawford, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0

Article · 2026-09-29 · 8 min read · Trade: alcohol, dairy and motorcycles · World and macro

Banned at the border: Canadian beer, spirits and big motorcycles

About $967 million of 2025 imports, 87 percent of it alcohol by one think tank's count and about 0.3 percent of what the United States buys from Canada by the Congressional Research Service's; CBP's notice rejects covered entries outright from 12:01 a.m. but leaves alcohol outside the annex's 'Packaged' lines at the 50 percent duty, BRP says its Spyder and Canyon are caught, and Diageo's own report keeps its maturing Canadian whisky in Valleyfield and Gimli.

By the desk. Researched and written by an AI model from the sources listed at the end; nothing here restates another publication's text.

DOOdirect DEOadjacent BF.Badjacent CMPadjacent

What took effect at midnight

At 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday 29 September, three proclamations President Trump signed on 8 September took effect, excluding a list of Canadian goods from the United States altogether: beer, wine, cider and spirits in bottles, cans, kegs and other containers for drinking under Proclamation 11061; whey, molasses and non-alcoholic beer under Proclamation 11062; and motorcycles and mopeds with engines over 800 cc under Proclamation 11063. Each rests on Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which lets the President exclude a country's goods when, after duties are imposed, it 'maintains or increases the discrimination against the commerce of the United States'. ^{[2, 3, 4]}

U.S. Customs and Border Protection told importers on Monday afternoon how it would enforce them. From that minute, its notice says, covered goods cannot enter a foreign trade zone or a bonded warehouse or travel in bond, 'any entry containing covered products will be unconditionally rejected', and entries already filed but not yet released 'will be cancelled'. Goods imported before the hour may still be entered, at the 50 percent duty already in force. For alcohol the ban applies only where a line's limit in the annex is met: where it says 'Packaged', it covers only bottles, cans, boxes, kegs and similar containers, and alcohol outside those limits is 'not subject to the import exclusion and remain subject to the applicable 50 percent ad valorem duty', in the notice's words. ^[1]

How a 1930 law got here

Until this summer no president had expressly cited Section 338 to impose a tariff, the Congressional Research Service notes. On 20 July Proclamations 11046, 11047 and 11048 put 50 percent duties on Canadian goods over alcoholic beverages, dairy and motor vehicles; they were suspended for three days on 18 August and took effect on 22 August after talks failed. Canada answered with tariffs on about US$20 billion of American goods from 8 September, and the same day the White House announced the bans, together with a change to the tariff lists from 15 September that removed rock salt and cement and added all-terrain vehicles and more dairy products. ^{[6, 5]}

Each proclamation gives its own reason. The alcohol one finds that Canada discriminates 'by banning the purchase, distribution, or retailing of U.S. alcoholic beverages while not banning or similarly restricting such products from other countries', and cites Saskatchewan's announcement of 27 August of an extra 50 percent levy on American alcohol from 8 September. The dairy one points to Canada's tariff-rate quota allocation for American cheeses, the motorcycle one to Canada's 'motor vehicle tariff scheme'. The White House's fact sheet says that over the past year and a half only China and Canada 'have chosen to retaliate' against the President's tariffs rather than negotiate. ^{[2, 3, 4, 5]}

How much trade it touches

Not much, by the numbers. The Congressional Research Service puts 2025 imports of the banned products at about $967 million, about 0.3 percent of U.S. imports from Canada by value; Jacob Jensen of the American Action Forum reached the same $967 million and told the Associated Press that 87 percent of it is alcohol. The AP set that against about $880 billion of two-way trade a year. By Census Bureau figures CBC News reported, the United States imported $673 million of Canadian spirits in 2025, $62.1 million of wine and $19.2 million of beer. ^{[6, 7, 9]}

People close to the trade say the tariff had already done most of the work. 'For a lot of these goods, the 50 per cent was already acting as a de facto ban by making importation from Canada into the United States uneconomical,' Patrick Childress, a trade lawyer at Holland & Knight and a former U.S. trade official, told the AP. Barry Appleton of New York Law School told CBC News: 'Bans are really hard to get off,' and 'a ban is usually here to stay.' Spirits Canada told CBC that about 93 percent of the spirits Canada sends abroad go to the United States. ^{[7, 8, 9]}

The companies on the record

BRP, the Valcourt, Quebec maker of Can-Am vehicles, confirmed to the AP that its three-wheel Can-Am Spyder and Canyon motorcycles 'will be excluded from importation into the U.S.', and said the effect likely will not be felt until next year because it has completed most production and shipments for this season; CBC News notes the Spyder is assembled at its Valcourt factory. BRP's management discussion for the quarter to 31 July, filed on 3 September, credits higher shipments of off-road and three-wheel vehicles for the rise in its U.S. revenue. ^{[7, 8, 11]}

Diageo sits on the line the notice draws. Its annual report for the year to 30 June puts Canadian whisky at 6 percent of reported net sales of $19.6 billion, keeps its maturing Canadian whisky in Valleyfield and Gimli, and names the United States as the principal market of Crown Royal, a brand Shanken News Daily, citing Impact Databank, puts at $2.4 billion of U.S. retail value. In 2025 the company said it would close its Amherstburg, Ontario bottling plant and shift 'some bottling volume' closer to American consumers, CBC reported. The Daily Pour, in a piece Yahoo carried on 10 September, reported that the whisky now crosses in bulk and is bottled in the United States, and that the annex does not list the classification for whisky other than rye in containers over four liters, adding that CBP 'would ultimately determine how individual imports are classified'. ^{[12, 15, 13, 14]}

CBC News reported that tariffs were removed from bulk shipments of certain whiskies and liqueurs when the measures were announced, and The Drinks Business reported that whiskies, liqueurs and cordials in containers over four litres fall outside both the ban and the 50 percent tariff. Robert Glasgow, a trade lawyer with KPMG Law, told CBC this spares big multinational spirits companies with bottling on both sides of the border from some of the impact, leaving smaller producers to feel it. ^{[9, 16]}

The measure the alcohol ban answers is in an American filer's own annual report. Brown-Forman's, for the year to 30 April, says that in March 2025 'several Canadian provinces removed all American beverage alcohol from store shelves, including Jack Daniel's', and reports lower volumes of its American whiskey and Jack Daniel's ready-to-drink products in Canada 'due to the continued absence of American-made beverage alcohol from retail shelves in most of its provinces'. According to CBC, the Distilled Spirits Council puts the 2025 fall in American spirits sales to Canada at 70 percent and in wine exports at 87 percent. ^{[17, 9]}

The same package took something off the list. Compass Minerals, which mines salt at Goderich, Ontario, said in its quarterly report of 6 August that its exports from Canada into the United States had been exempt from tariffs until the Section 338 duties were announced, and that it had put 'tariff pass-through provisions' into some of its contracts; rock salt left the tariff list on 15 September, the White House's fact sheet says. ^{[18, 5]}

What settles it next

Neither government names a date. On Monday the President told reporters 'I think a deal will be made, but it's going to be a fair deal', as CBC News quoted him, and that Canada would come to the United States 'over the next three to four weeks', as Quartz quoted him; the U.S. Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer, told CNBC on Friday there was 'no urgency on our side'. A spokesman for Canada's trade minister, Dominic LeBlanc, said the priority is protecting Canadian workers and businesses from 'these unjustified actions'. Childress told the AP the standoff is likely to continue for months, not weeks. ^{[8, 10, 7]}

The records that will show where it goes are fixed in the documents. CBP's rejections run from today; any correction to the annexes comes as a CBP notice in the Federal Register, as the proclamations direct; and each proclamation provides that if its ban is struck down, the 50 percent duty applies in its place. The U.S. International Trade Commission asked on 4 September for public comments on how to carry out its own duties under Section 338, and bills in Congress would repeal the statute or require Congress to approve its use, the Congressional Research Service reports. ^{[1, 2, 4, 6]}

Who it reaches

BRP directly, through the Spyder and Canyon it builds in Quebec for American riders. Diageo through Crown Royal and the Canadian whisky it matures in Valleyfield and Gimli, on the bulk side of a line CBP's notice draws. Brown-Forman through the empty Canadian shelves the alcohol proclamation answers, and Compass Minerals through the tariff list the same package trimmed. Canada's whey, molasses and non-alcoholic beer are named in the dairy proclamation without a filer on the record tied to them. ^{[7, 12, 1, 17, 18, 3]}

Sources

Every stock is a company; the desk grades the company behind the stock. This article describes; it does not recommend. Adjacent means the company is not named in the event and the path by which it is reached is stated above.

All news →