Surrey Board of Trade surveys businesses to understand potential effect of U.S. tariffs

The Surrey Board of Trade (SBOT) is launching a survey to explore how U.S. President Donald Trump’s potential tariffs could affect local business.

Board policy and research manager Jasroop Gosal says it’s advocating for many Surrey businesses that directly rely on the U.S. markets.

“Understanding how these potential tariff threats could disrupt supply chains and trade is essential to safeguarding local jobs and our economy,” said Gosal.

While Trump did not make enforcing tariffs on Canada a priority for day one, Gosal tells 1130 NewsRadio that it doesn’t mean businesses are out of the woods just yet.

“We want to make sure that the voice and the thoughts and perspectives of our members reaches all levels of government as well as the broader community. And so we are relaunching this survey to ensure that this data that we provide to the prime minister, or the premier, or media, or other stakeholders is timely and accurate,” Gosal explained.

He says the board is hopeful that the tariffs can be avoided altogether.

“If both countries can work together. If the Surrey Board of Trade, through our advocacy, can ensure that our federal government and provincial government are doing what they can to shore up our borders, prevent the flow of fentanyl, ensure that legal immigration is mitigated, and making sure that we are doing our part within NATO as well to mitigate some of these tariffs,” Gosal said.

The board stresses that retaliatory tariffs are not the only solution and hopes to use the results of its survey to connect and facilitate discussions on both sides of the border.

“We are realizing that a lot of businesses are preparing themselves quite adequately, and we are ensuring that these other methods or mechanisms to get this out there are available to them. Like this survey, and we’re also providing some insights on what they can do to shore up their businesses so that there’s less impact.”

The SBOT will begin collecting survey data over the next month before releasing their findings.

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