The United States and Canada have hit pause on a possible trade war but Nova Scotia businesses that export south of the border hope a push to find new markets will solve a decades-long impediment to trade — interprovincial barriers.

"I don't ever want tariffs imposed on Canadian goods, but a reduction in internal trade barriers, we have to take that, take what we can," said Ryan Manucha, a researcher with the C.D. Howe Institute think-tank and author of Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust…