Forget tariffs. We need energy to drive Maine’s economy.

March 3, 2026

Stock photo by Unsplash.

I, too, have to add my name to the chorus of constituents opposed to tariffs. They are simply a tax on our citizens. The idea that tariffs will persuade Americans to build factories to produce the products we now import at higher quality and lower cost than imports is preposterous, especially in the state of Maine.

Free trade is absolutely basic to our economy. What we need to focus on is our natural advantage, what we can do better and cheaper than anyone else and sell that product or service to our competitor. Therefore, we need to structurally reduce our costs.

Where do we start? Energy. Last year our electricity costs rose 24%, second highest to California. Why? Not because Canadians or Spaniards own our utilities, but because we produce little power ourselves and import it with little control over its price from the outside. We did have a solution, namely offshore wind power, but we let Trump take it away from us. We had few friends to support us in this endeavor.

Perhaps it is time to break free of this subservience. Immediately to our north are the maritime provinces of Canada, with whom we share more challenges and opportunities than with our states to the south and west. This is a consequence of our geography. We both share economies built on similar industries: fisheries, forestry, agriculture and tourism. We need to work together to provide the scale whereby we employ new technology and our natural advantages to develop in partnership new products and services that we can sell not just in Europe, but globally.

One unusual example might be totally new materials and sources of energy present in our region awaiting creative development initiatives. It just requires thinking outside the box.

Larry Flood

Blue Hill

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