President-elect Donald Trump will return to the Oval Office Monday and has vowed to carry out various “day one” priorities that could affect Maine.
Although the specifics of various pledges are still unclear or subject to changes from the mercurial Republican, the promises that could come to fruition as soon as Trump’s inauguration concludes Monday touch on everything from offshore wind to Jan. 6 rioters, among other issues.
Maine has failed to win a massive federal grant for a contentious offshore wind port that Gov. Janet Mills is proposing on Sears Island in Searsport, but that all may not matter if Trump carries through on his vows to halt offshore wind development.
Trump reportedly told U.S. Jeff Van Drew, R-New Jersey, to draft an executive order to halt wind projects. Van Drew told the Associated Press on Wednesday his draft order would halt offshore wind development from Rhode Island to Virginia for six months.
That could allow Trump’s interior secretary nominee, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, to review how leases and permits were issued. Under questioning from U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, he would not commit Thursday to honoring existing leases but generally said projects that “make sense” and are currently in law would continue.
Time will tell if Maine is included. Outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration already started selling leases for areas in the Gulf of Maine that could power more than 4.5 million homes.
Trump has vowed to pardon as soon as next week rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and disrupted Congress as it certified Biden’s 2020 election victory, but he has not been clear on whether he will seek to pardon all of the more than 1,500 people who have been charged, with more than 1,000 sentenced so far, or only pardon non-violent offenders.
Roughly a dozen Mainers have been charged in connection with the deadly riot that featured attacks on law enforcement officers. Four Mainers have been charged with violent offenses, and not every case is resolved.
The most prominent defendant, Matthew Brackley, a former Maine Senate candidate from Waldoboro, is serving a 15-month prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to assaulting police. Kyle Fitzsimmons, of Lebanon, received a seven-year prison sentence in July 2023.
Trump has threatened to immediately slap 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and higher rates on China. A delegation from Prince Edward Island is in Maine and other New England states this week to make the case for free trade.
Neighboring Canada is the state’s top trade partner, with wood products, seafood and mineral fuels among the key products that cross the border. Tariffs have previously played well politically in Maine but have hurt heritage industries at times, including during Trump’s first term.
U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from the rural 2nd District, reintroduced his measure Thursday to create a universal 10 percent tariff. Golden pointed to a Congressional Budget Office analysis that found it would raise $2.2 trillion through 2032. But economists have also warned of higher prices for consumers and slower global growth under Trump’s plan.
“Tariffs can be very complicated, but at the end of the day, this is what it means: If it costs our goods and services 25 percent more to come across the border, they’re going to be costing Americans 25 percent more to consume them,” Prince Edward Island Premier Dennis King said.
Defensemen Max Wanner was re-assigned to the Maine Mariners from the Providence Bruins on Thursday. Defenseman Michael Underwood was also re-assigned to Maine.
Wanner, 22, was acquired by the Boston Bruins when they traded Trent Federic to Edmonton last March. He played in 15 games for the AHL Providence Bruins at the end of last season, and seven this season.
Underwood returns for his second stint with the Mariners. He appeared in 67 games with Maine last season.
Some hot new titles have been arriving late at Maine libraries in recent months, after the closing of one the country’s major library book distributors.
Baker & Taylor, based in North Carolina, began winding down its operations in the fall and expects to close entirely this month. The company’s demise has left many Maine libraries scrambling to buy books through other sources, including local book stores, and to endure deliveries taking twice as long.
That means patrons expecting to get new books on or near publication dates are waiting longer to start turning pages.
At the Portland Public Library, “Heart The Lover” by Maine author Lily King wasn’t available to patrons until nearly a month after its Sept. 30 publication date, even though it was ordered in July. At the Libby Memorial Library in Old Orchard Beach, John Grisham’s Oct. 21 release “The Widow” took six weeks to arrive. Staff at the Kennbunk Free Library weren’t sure how long they’d have to wait for “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans, so they bought two copies at a local store, Octopus Bookshop. As of this week, there were 28 holds on the book.
“Baker & Taylor closing has totally rocked the library world nationwide. It has long been the preferred vendor among many Maine libraries, and their closure is certainly having an impact on us,” said Sarah Skawinski, associate director of the Portland Public Library and president of the Maine Library Association. “I think we’re over the hump now, though.”
Skawinski and other librarians say Baker & Taylor had been having problems getting books from publishers and had been slow with some deliveries, a problem that began during the COVID pandemic. Last year when it became apparent Baker & Taylor was likely going out of business, many libraries switched to the nation’s other major distributor, Ingram Content Group, as well as another company called Brodart Library Supplies. But with increased demand, both those companies have been slow in filling some orders in the last couple months, too.
Industry publications reported that Baker & Taylor’s problems were mostly financial, beginning in the pandemic and included the failed acquisition of another company. An email to Baker & Taylor asking for more information on its closure was not answered Wednesday.
Not every Maine library bought the majority of its books from Baker & Taylor; some used other distibutors instead. Staff at the Waterville Public Library, for instance, say they rarely used the company and weren’t impacted. The Lithgow Public Library in Augusta was only getting about four books a month from Baker & Taylor, said Director Sarah Curra Schultz-Nielsen. Those included children’s books, reference books and travel guides. Finding other distributors for those books, including Brodart and Bookshop, a company that sells mainly to independent bookstores, has been “mildly inconvenient” for staff and has not impacted patrons, Schultz-Nielsen said.
But other libraries used Baker & Taylor for most of its new releases, including fiction and non-fiction, as well to replacements for worn-out books. Stephen King’s books, for instance, have to be replaced pretty regularly, some librarians said.
The Portland Public Library had been ordering about 1,000 items a month from Baker & Taylor, mostly printed books. The library has about 359,000 physical items in its collection. Now, new books are coming to the library from Ingram, but will take maybe four weeks to arrive, compared to one to two weeks when Baker & Taylor was running smoothly.
And there is added work for librarians: While Baker & Taylor sent books that had already been catalogued and ready to be shelved, with bar codes and spine labels, Ingram is not yet offering that service, said Nicole Harkins, cataloging librarian at the Portland library.
“Patrons are aware it’s taking longer and they’re being patient,” Harkins said.
” data-image-caption=”<p>Rosanne Barnes, an adult services reader’s advisor, shelves new fiction books at Portland Public Library on Wednesday. (Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)
” data-medium-file=”https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_Libraries_03.jpg?w=300″ data-large-file=”https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_Libraries_03.jpg?w=780″ height=”683″ width=”1024″ fifu-data-src=”https://i3.wp.com/www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_Libraries_03.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1″ alt=”” class=”wp-image-7559441″ srcset=”https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_Libraries_03.jpg 3000w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_Libraries_03.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_Libraries_03.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_Libraries_03.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_Libraries_03.jpg?resize=1536,1025 1536w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_Libraries_03.jpg?resize=2048,1366 2048w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_Libraries_03.jpg?resize=1200,800 1200w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_Libraries_03.jpg?resize=2000,1334 2000w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_Libraries_03.jpg?resize=780,520 780w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_Libraries_03.jpg?resize=400,267 400w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”/><figcaption class=)
Rosanne Barnes, an adult services reader’s advisor, shelves new fiction books at Portland Public Library on Wednesday, (Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)Kennebunk Free Library also switched to Ingram, and staff are spending more time prepping books, including putting protective plastic covers on them, said Allison Atkins, assistant director and head of adult services. Atkins said library staff wrote about their “book ordering troubles” in a library newsletter and on social media, so patrons would understand why new books were slow to arrive. The library used to get about 100 books a month from Baker & Taylor and despite still being “way behind” on new books, patrons have been patient, Atkins said.
For smaller libraries with smaller staffs, finding a new supplier is not always easy. Baker & Taylor was the major books supplier for Davis Memorial Library in Limington. The staff there is so small that they didn’t have time to research or compare new suppliers, so they waited until early this month, said Heidi Libby, the library’s director. As a result, the library has very few new arrivals on its shelves right now and has been filling the “new book” shelves with donated books as well as ordering from Amazon.
” data-image-caption=”<p>Volunteer Jim Perry covers books with protective covering at the Kennebunk Free Library on Wednesday. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
” data-medium-file=”https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_kennebunk-library_1.jpg?w=300″ data-large-file=”https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_kennebunk-library_1.jpg?w=780″ height=”710″ width=”1024″ fifu-data-src=”https://i2.wp.com/www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_kennebunk-library_1.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1″ alt=”” class=”wp-image-7559442″ srcset=”https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_kennebunk-library_1.jpg 3000w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_kennebunk-library_1.jpg?resize=300,208 300w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_kennebunk-library_1.jpg?resize=768,533 768w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_kennebunk-library_1.jpg?resize=1024,710 1024w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_kennebunk-library_1.jpg?resize=1536,1065 1536w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_kennebunk-library_1.jpg?resize=2048,1421 2048w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_kennebunk-library_1.jpg?resize=1200,832 1200w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_kennebunk-library_1.jpg?resize=2000,1387 2000w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_kennebunk-library_1.jpg?resize=780,541 780w, https://www.pressherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/01/43353876_20260107_kennebunk-library_1.jpg?resize=400,277 400w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”/><figcaption class=)
Volunteer Jim Perry covers books with protective covering at the Kennebunk Free Library on Wednesday. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
Several librarians said this week that local book stores have been a big help during this period, getting books quickly and pricing them affordably. Sherman’s Maine Coast Bookshops, which has 10 stores across the state, saw its sales to local libraries increase from $50,000 in 2024 to nearly $100,000 in 2025, said Jeff Curtis, owner and CEO of Sherman’s.
The Auburn Public Library would sometimes get more than 300 books a month from Baker & Taylor, including books for adults, teens, and children, as well as fiction and nonfiction as well as some large print books and CDs, said Nancy O’Toole, collections manager at the library.
When Baker & Taylor started having problems, the library bought books from Amazon and the local Bull Moose music and book store chain. Now, with Baker & Taylor closing, the library has switched to Ingram, but has seen delivery delays as that company has been inundated with new customers. This week the library got an order of books that were released in November, including “Exit Strategy” by Lee Child and Andrew Child, “The Seven Rings” by Nora Roberts and “Return of the Spider” by James Patterson.
“The hope is that now that the holidays are over, shipping from Ingram will expedite. But just to be safe, we are choosing to buy certain books elsewhere, including titles by big-name authors, popular series, or anything tied to a fast-approaching holiday,” said O’Toole. “Patrons want to see those titles on the shelf in a timely manner, and we want to make sure we fulfill those expectations.”
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Equipment at Woodland Pulp in Maine roared back to life in mid-December after a 60 day pause in operations, and now one of the state’s largest mills is again accepting wood from New Brunswick producers.
“On Monday, we restarted purchasing fibre for the mill,” company spokesperson Scott Beal said.
“We’re back in the market. We are bringing in some fibre from suppliers in Canada, hardwood and chips.”
The general manager of the Carleton Victoria Forest Products Marketing Board says the news is welcome but not nearly enough to help embattled private woodlot owners in the province.
“Everything is good news at this point, but it is not as good as it could be,” Kim Jensen said. “We’re not back where we were.”
With sales down by about two-thirds from last year, Jensen said some woodlot owners are deciding to pack it up, while others struggle on.
“We have had some older ones who’ve left, they’ve just, they’ve had enough and they’ve left,” she said.
“The people who have invested in the business, have bought processors and forwarders, they have to stay in business. And if you have $1,000,000 worth of equipment there, your payments are $40,000 to $60,000 a month and you have to work. You can’t just go somewhere else and get a job.”
Duty rates on New Brunswick wood were set at 35 per cent in September, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced an additional 10 per cent tariff on lumber imports.
The sudden increase was too much for Woodland Pulp to bear. The mill relied on New Brunswick wood for about a third of its supply prior to October.
“It certainly adds cost to the business and, you know, like other wood users, I mean we’re always looking and hoping and trying to source fibre at the least cost,” Beal told CBC News in October.
The Baileyville-based mill has rehired all of the 144 people laid off during its two month shut-down, and Beal said it will likely take some time to ramp up to accept the amount of wood it previously did.
And with the difficult and uncertain tariff environment, Beal said, it’s hard to say how long the mill would be able to continue purchasing Canadian wood.
“It’s a very challenging pulp market,” he said.
“The tariffs remain in place. That hasn’t changed. So it’s not reasonable to think that that won’t be a headwind for the business.”
The federal government did create a $1.25 billion fund to help the industry survive, but Jensen says that hasn’t meant support for individual private woodlot owners.
In October, Jensen told CBC News that sales of timber by the marketing board’s members totalled about $1 million for all of 2024. They have fallen to about $200,000 over the past 12 months.
And the cost of cross-border business has continued to rise.
Before Woodland Pulp stopped taking Canadian timber, the company had a lumberyard in Florenceville ,where producers could drop off wood. Woodland would then take responsibility for shipping it the rest of the way to the mill.
Now it’s up to individual producers to source transportation and to arrange a broker to help meet cross-border requirements. That’s adding between $60 and $100 per load of timber heading to the U.S.
“The markets are tightening up, and the prices are going down, and you can only go down so far before it’s just done,” Jensen said.
“A mill can stop and start up, maybe. But a private guy who loses his equipment, he’s lost everything. He’s not coming back.”
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