Trump's trade war hits home on ‘the front line of Canada'

Yahoo

26-03-2025

WINDSOR, Ontario — These are complicated times along Canada's border.
Whenever President Donald Trump talks about obliterating Canada's auto industry, he takes direct aim at the people who live over the river from Detroit in Windsor. Windsorites recoil from his threats, but few see Detroiters as adversaries.
But as they gear up to head to the polls on April 28 in a snap federal election, the focus for Canadians in border towns and elsewhere is increasingly their complicated relationship with their neighbors. As long as there's a trade war, Trump will be the ballot question.
Because of where they live and work, Windsor residents intuitively understand what's at stake.
'If you said to them, the Ambassador Bridge is closed and protesters are blocking it, 100 percent of the people in Windsor would say, 'Uh oh,'' said Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens. 'They know right away that's a deeply troubling issue.'
That is not a hypothetical. In 2022, a six-day blockade of the bridge that connects the city to Detroit delayed billions in trade. In Windsor — and all along the Canadian border — the trade war is personal.
Brian Masse, a longtime New Democratic Party lawmaker fighting his ninth federal election in the district of Windsor West, puts it bluntly: "We are expecting to be the front line of Canada in this fight," he says.
Dilkens, who has his own connections to the U.S. — he earned his MBA in Michigan, and his kids were born in Detroit — acknowledged that residents of his city are looking for a federal government that will 'have their back' against Trump's threats. Even if Ottawa and Washington reach some sort of detente, the mayor says, his residents will still be facing the same pre-Trump frustrations. Life is still expensive. Fentanyl use is a major concern in the downtown core. Immigration is putting pressure on housing and social services.
He and Masse both identify allies on the other side of the border. The mayor recently visited Bryan Barnett, the Republican mayor of Rochester Hills, Michigan — where they raised a Canadian flag in their visitor's honor. Masse namechecked Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a progressive Democrat from Detroit.
Both Barnett and Tlaib have offered to help Canada where they can. Others fear the wrath of the White House, and express support only behind closed doors. "Not everyone is even quietly an ally, because they're just afraid to say something," says Dilkens.
Canadian mayors and Indigenous leaders from the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River region made their case in Washington against tariffs earlier this month. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities fanned out across the U.S. in February.
Windsor is far from the only pressure point.
Cam Bissonnette, the owner and operator of a duty-free shop in Osoyoos, British Columbia, choked up last week as he described his business' dire straits during a press conference appealing for targeted federal help for border businesses.
'Right now, it really feels like we are hostages in economic warfare,' Bissonnette said, citing reduced cross-border customers — and a day recently when his only transaction was a refund.
"We know that aluminum, lumber, the automotive industry — they employ hundreds of thousands of people in this country," he said. "They can sell their products elsewhere in the world. We can't."
Barbara Barrett, the executive director of the Frontier Duty Free Association, called on Ottawa to provide "targeted financial support and a plan that recognizes unique vulnerabilities of border-dependent communities — and the businesses that keep them alive."
Border towns are essential economic nodes within massive supply chains, but their interconnectedness is more human than widget.
Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati says his family is evenly split between both sides. His best friend lives in western New York.
In steeltown Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Mayor Matt Shoemaker recently told POLITICO that the identically named town across the St. Marys River — a community about one-fifth the size of its Ontario counterpart — lacks a public swimming pool. If Michiganders want to take a dip, many just cross the bridge to Canada.
But these days, residents on the Canadian side of the border think twice about crossing over.
Take Mayor Allan MacEachern's residents in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, a small town across the St. Croix River from Calais, Maine. 'They're upset. It's a punch in the gut, so to speak, from our neighbors. I'll say neighbor,' he said, referring to Trump. 'That's the problem. Our neighbors are taking the heat for it.'
In February, for example, about 500,000 fewer travellers crossed the land border into the U.S.
In Windsor, Dilkens points to another factor in any Canadian reluctance to visit Detroit: the weak exchange rate as the loonie struggles against the greenback. 'The high U.S. dollar makes me second guess going over there and spending any money, because it's just not worth it,' he says.
Dilkens chairs an upstart Border Mayors Alliance, a fledgling group of three-dozen-plus mayors — and counting — that grew out of an Ontario-only group that formed during the Covid era, back when the border shuttered.
The alliance's primary goal is to find municipal allies across the border who can influence U.S. lawmakers — a trickle-up effort that feeds Canada's provincial and federal efforts.
They report their interactions to Canada's embassy and consulates, contributing to a database of key American contacts who could possibly speak up for Canada.
Dilkens is looking to maximize speaking engagements in the Detroit area. He says the embassy is 'doing very targeted research so that mayors are empowered with all the right information' when they have the ear of Americans.
In Niagara Falls, Diodati says he bought Trump's 'The Art of the Deal' when it hit bookstores in 1987: 'I was a young entrepreneur. I was intrigued by Donald Trump, and I liked his personality and the way he negotiated deals.'
When POLITICO spoke with Diodati in February, he told us Trump's annexation talk was a negotiation tactic. 'I get his MO. It didn't offend me, but I can see how a lot of people are hurt by it, because they think we're too close for someone to take a shot like that.'
Dilkens says Canadians are braced for the next salvo — a new round of U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods scheduled to land next week. 'April 2 will be a telling day,' he said.