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Colonial Tool is caught like a speck of sand in the multi-billion-dollar Canada-U.S. tariff dustup as it is suddenly stuck paying 25 per cent more for U.S. steel.

“I’m caught in the middle because the big guys are fighting,” Brett Froats, one of three owners at Colonial Tool said of the “ridiculous” and escalating trade dispute between U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “It’s like a bunch of kids playing in the sandbox.”

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Colonial Tool Group Inc. is suddenly paying 25 per cent more for steel it buys from the United States because of the steel tariffs imposed July 1 by Canada in retaliation for U.S. tariffs that went into effect in June. Froats said he’s paid an extra $7,000 for steel just in the first six days of the new tariff on imported steel.

Photo by Dan Janisse / WINwp

Colonial Tool, with $16 million in sales a year, is stuck because it has to buy high-speed steel, which is a stronger, harder steel needed to manufacture cutting tools for autoparts manufacturers. That steel is not manufactured in Canada, so Canada should not have included it in the broad steel tariffs and should exempt it quickly, Froats said.