President Trump has agreed to pause tariffs on Canada and Mexico for 30 days. But if tariffs on Canadian goods take effect – including a proposed 10% tariff on energy – Granite Staters may see higher costs for heating their homes this winter.
Irving Oil, which operates Canada’s largest refinery and delivers heating oil and propane across northern New England, said Sunday that the tariffs would increase prices for their customers and impact the economy more broadly.
“Given the importance of safeguarding the energy supply chain, we urge all stakeholders within government and industry to come together and work toward a resolution as soon as possible,” the company said.
The potential impacts of tariffs on Canadian exports underscore the reliance New England has on its northern neighbor to provide fuel.
Fuel oil is New Hampshire’s top Canadian import. The New England-Canada business council says 80% of the region’s gasoline and diesel come from our Northern neighbors. Ninety percent of the jet fuel used at Boston Logan comes from Canada, too.
Alec O’Meara, a spokesperson for the gas and electric utility company Unitil, said it’s too soon to know how tariffs would affect their rates, which change on a regular schedule every six months. New Hampshire’s largest utility company, Eversource, said the same.
But, O’Meara said, New England is uniquely reliant on energy imports; 70% of the fuel for Unitil’s natural gas customers comes from Canada.
“New England is unique to the rest of the United States in that there is a bit of a bottleneck when it comes to pipelines coming in from domestic supply,” he said. “As a result of that, our region is uniquely more reliant on the global market as a whole.”
Gov. Kelly Ayotte said she had concerns about how a trade war would hurt the state’s economic competitiveness.
"I appreciate that President Trump is fighting to get the fentanyl poison off our streets and secure our border, but I don’t want it done to New Hampshire’s disadvantage,” Ayotte said in a statement on Monday. “I encourage a quick resolution of this situation so that families don’t unnecessarily bear the brunt of increased costs when prices are already high.”
Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association, said the proposed tariffs bring uncertainty. But if tariffs were imposed, electricity costs should stay relatively stable for the next several months.
In New Hampshire, most residents and businesses have prices locked in until the summer. (That doesn’t mean we won’t see those costs jump later; a recent New Hampshire policy change allows utilities to charge retroactively when short-term electric prices jump).
Plus, New England is importing less electricity from Canada than it used to; only about 9% of the power used by the regional grid in 2024 was imported, and some of that was from New York.
Electricity generated by hydropower is included in the energy exemption to the far-reaching 25% tariffs proposed by the Trump Administration, which means it would be under the 10% tariff.
But, Dolan said, the definition of “energy” used in the President's executive orders does not include electricity specifically – so it’s unclear whether Canadian electricity generated by nuclear plants, natural gas or other means would fall under a general 25% tariff instead.
Other energy resources are a different story.
“For heating oil, for gasoline for your car, for natural gas to heat your home, that's where I'm expecting a more direct and timely impact when these tariffs go into effect,” Dolan said. “The scale and the duration of that really matter. And I don't have a great answer for what that's going to look like.”
NHPR’s Michelle Liu contributed reporting.
