hurting

It’s hard to hate on Canada. It’s like cursing a cotton ball, or raging about tapioca.

The friendliest of neighbors, the country has fought alongside the U.S. in conflicts going back to World War I, purchased many trillions of dollars worth of American goods and blessed this country with, among other gifts, ice hockey, Drake, Joni Mitchell and Alex Trebek.

While you can question the nation’s culinary sensibility — the unofficial dish, poutine, is an abomination consisting of French fries, cheese curds and hot gravy — Canada is basically a very large, very pretty country filled with a lot of very nice, extremely polite people.

But for reasons only he can fathom, President Trump has declared economic war on our amiable northern neighbor.

After more than a year of trading tit-for-tat tariffs, Trump recently escalated the conflict by slapping a new 50% tax on a variety of Canadian exports, including cement, furniture, dairy products and, most iconically, hockey sticks. The added levy, which will further burden inflation-weary U.S. consumers, is set to take effect in mid-August.

The move makes little sense from an economic or foreign policy standpoint. It’s best to regard Trump’s trade moves as a wind gauge charts a blustery storm; his on-again, off-again tariffs are not the result of some carefully thought-out policy but, rather, a measure of the president’s shifting moods and pique toward certain foreign leaders.

And they carry a not-inconsiderable price tag — California’s struggling wine industry being just one example.

For decades, the industry has been a vital and growing part of California’s agricultural economy. Recent years, however, have seen a number of setbacks.

Costs are rising. Sales are falling, as younger generations favor hard seltzers, canned cocktails or premium beers over crushed grapes. At the same time, climate change and the growing incidence of wildfire threaten the viability of some of California’s premier wine-growing regions.

A Canadian ban on alcohol imports

Then there’s the trade war with Canada, the industry’s largest export market and formerly a major customer of California wines. Until recently, the Canadian market accounted for more than a third of the state’s exports.

But last year, several provinces stopped purchasing U.S. alcohol in response to Trump’s tariffs and his threats — more slapstick than real — to annex the country and make Canada the 51st American state. While two provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta, soon lifted their bans, the two most populous, Ontario and Quebec, have not.

As a result of this “geopolitical friction,” to use the words of University of California researchers, California wine exports to Canada fell by nearly 80% in 2025 compared with the year before. Unsurprisingly, Canadian sales of homegrown wines have soared.

Stick that in your terroir!

In response to the dramatic drop in exports, more than a dozen California members of Congress wrote last month to Quebec’s premier, Christine Fréchette, urging her to lift the retaliatory ban on U.S. wine and spirits.

“Reopening the market to American wine would restore consumer choice and signal a commitment to restoring fair and balanced trade for Québecois consumers and American wineries who have no connection to the underlying trade disputes,” the letter read.

Sen. Adam Schiff also wrote Fréchette asking her to resume the sale of California wine and U.S. spirits.

“The restriction on American wine has had damaging consequences for regional consumers, businesses, and producers who have no influence over national policies,” the California Democrat stated. “In fact, I have repeatedly voiced my opposition to and voted against the President’s harmful trade policies, including as they pertain to Canada.”

Fréchette’s response was, in a word: “Non!”

“In the context of the ongoing trade war, the premier continues to defend Quebec’s economic interests,” a spokesperson for Fréchette told CBC Radio. “This measure will remain in place as long as the United States maintains these unjustified tariffs. Our government will re-evaluate its position when the American administration reverses these measures.”

And that statement came before Trump upped the ante, along with the tariffs on Canada, which, presumably, doesn’t help matters.

Red or white?

Mike Thompson has seen the damage of Trump’s economic warfare firsthand. The St. Helena Democrat represents the heart of Wine Country and spearheaded, along with Democratic Rep. Jimmy Panetta of Carmel and Republican Rep. David Valadao of Hanford, the bipartisan overture to Quebec’s premier.

“I talked to a vintner today,” Thompson said during a drive this week through his sprawling Northern California district. “They went from an $11-million annual wine export to a $2-million annual wine export to Canada because of this.”

Thompson has introduced legislation, including a measure to reimburse wine producers for the money they’ve lost due to Trump’s tariffs, but the proposals have stalled in the House despite bipartisan support. His effort, Thompson dryly noted, “has not been warmly embraced by the administration.”

Meanwhile, the cross-border hostilities continue. Neither Trump nor Fréchette seems ready to budge, with California vintners still stuck in the middle.

So the question in Montreal and Toronto remains: What pairs best with poutine? Canadian white or red?

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Trump administration targeted California and other blue states for clean energy cuts
The deep dive: Justice Kennedy reflects on his time deciding the Constitution’s promise of liberty and equality
The L.A. Times Special: His nickname was ‘Satan.’ His political influence was immense
Until next time,
mzb
—
Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

Sorry to rain on your all-analog parade.

It’s no secret that vinyl records’ resurgence has hit a new plateau, outselling CDs for the first time since 1987 as of 2022, according to a report from the Recording Industry Assn. of America. Three years later, its year-end report flaunts another statistic: Vinyl record sales surpassed $1 billion in 2025 — the first time since 1983.

But there’s an inevitable downside to anything that’s partially made of liquid dinosaur bones. Modern vinyl records are crafted with PVC resin, which makes up more than 75% of an average disk The synthetic polymer itself is made of chlorine and fossil fuel-derived feed stock.

To put its harm in perspective, a first-of-its-kind report from Vinyl Alliance, published in June 2024, found that 50% of a record’s carbon emissions come from this resin. The carbon footprint of a single LP was estimated to be roughly equal to the pollution a gas-powered vehicle emits over a three-mile trip. It adds up quick, considering that 46.8 million new records were sold last year.

Thankfully, it’s not all grim.

Organizations like Music Declares Emergency and the Music Climate Pact initiative are coming together to address the issue. A campaign by the groups — in collaboration with record labels and distribution teams at Secretly Group, Exceleration Music, Warp Records, Ninja Tune and Beggars Group — features titles pressed on 100% reclaimed material.

The release, set in tandem with World Environment Day on Friday, boasts marquee titles such as Elliott Smith’s “Roman Candle,” Bon Iver’s “For Emma, Forever Ago” and Dinosaur Jr.’s “You’re Living All Over Me.”

“What we found talking to a lot of our artists and to customers is that … they are concerned about the environment, and they want to find ways to reduce their footprint,” says Ben Swanson, co-founder of both Secretly Group and the Independent Record Pressing plant in Bordentown, N.J., where the LPs are made. “It’s about 16% less footprint than the traditional piece of vinyl.”

Soren Smith working at Independent Record Pressing in Bordentown, N.J., on May 26, 2026.

(Dutch Doscher / For The Times)

Largely, it’s been people like Swanson who have fully committed to the cause. He says that during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in an “activist moment,” several labels signed onto the Music Climate Pact, declaring their intention to reduce their emissions and be better stewards of Earth.

“It had almost no teeth to it,” Swanson explains. “A lot of people signed it, posted something on Instagram, and it sat there for a few years. For us, it was pretty frustrating … it felt very perfunctory.”

His work continued, along with a few others, thanks to support from Murmur, an organization designed to support labels and industry names, effectuating the commitments made when the Music Climate Pact was signed.

“We’re more doers than sayers,” Swanson says. “We’ve really been experimenting with what we’re calling ‘Revinyl’ — post-industrial, pre-consumer, recycled vinyl as a means to reduce our footprint at IRP.”

This is what some of Friday’s release is made of — all the trimmings, tidbits and overstock that would otherwise end up in landfills or on the factory floor. For the time being, it certainly won’t solve the climate cost of vinyl records, but it helps to mitigate it.

Between 2024 and 2025, total units produced at Independent Record Pressing increased by 41% while emissions — which also benefited from lower-carbon transportation — decreased by 34%.

“The idea is, if you can make those records 16% more efficient and also show fans of those records … that it is viable, maybe it makes it a little bit easier next year when we go out to ask other artists to jump on board,” Swanson explains. “We’re not making records that are just going to go sit on the shelf — these are records we’re continually repressing all the time anyway.”

Similarly, Ian Stanton, head of sustainability at Beggars Group, was among the first to sign the pact in 2021. His role was created five years ago to give indie labels a voice in light of minimal resources and capabilities. Though these roles do exist at larger labels, he says they have “slightly different drivers.”

When it comes to records, the pure plastic pollution that comes from them is also a concern. When old records make it to a landfill, they’re not only likely to outlive the site, but can also leach plasticizers, a Keele University report found.

“Vinyl is not like a single-use plastic; we don’t throw it away after one listen. We treasure it, we pass it on through generations, and people have a real connection with it,” he says. “But like any other product, there are ways of making it more sustainable.”

He refers to certain plastics, such as shrink wrap, as the most “visible” aspect of vinyl record pollution to consumers. From a collector’s point of view, shrink wrap can actually increase the value of a record. Though there has been discourse over the years around whether this can actually damage the sleeve, many sellers champion an “in the shrink” label as they mark up prices.

Splatter-patterned records arrive at the trim station at Independent Record Pressing in Bordentown, N.J., on May 26, 2026.

(Dutch Doscher / For The Times)

Other visible aspects, such as the paper sleeves in which the records are housed, are also harmful. However, Swanson says that swapping those for recycled materials outputs a relatively negligible difference in emissions impact, largely due to the process behind producing them.

For the time being, vinyl records made from reclaimed materials are the best that companies like Swanson’s can do, though they’re are always on the lookout for other, viable options for improving their footprint. As an example, they’re actively experimenting with how existing record material can help them.

What can the beat-up, worn-out records at your local thrift store do to dodge a landfill and keep the Earth spinning? As it stands, not much.

Stanton lists an array of challenges, including outdated materials, modern production regulations and contaminants.

“I suppose what we need with PVC for records is a really high-quality, contamination-free material to get that sound reproduction,” he explains. “When you bring in stuff from that post-consumer environment, you’ve got to make sure there’s no contamination in there, because you’re going to end up with sound quality issues.

“It’s all in process,” he adds.

For now, they look to fix the most immediate problems first, such as freight emissions, where Beggars Group has converted the vast majority of its shipping operations to sea freight, a far less harmful alternative compared with air freight.

“We want to look at the full life cycle … not only thinking from the cradle to the grave, but from the point where the raw materials are extracted at the beginning,” Stanton says. “This life cycle analysis now looks at all different environmental indicators on this — the chemical usage, the water usage, and the end-of-life impacts on that side of things.”