U.S. communities that border Ontario worry tariffs come at a personal cost
Canada has said it plans to retaliate with 25% import tax on multitude of American products
At the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, a quote from former President Ronald Reagan is engraved on one wall.
"Let the 5,000-mile border between Canada and the United States stand as a symbol for the future," Reagan said upon signing a 1988 free trade pact with America's northern neighbour.
"Let it forever be not a point of division but a meeting place between our great and true friends."
But a point of division is here. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump plans to impose a 25 per cent tariff on most imported Canadian goods and a 10 per cent tariff on Canadian oil and gas. Mexico is also facing a 25 per cent tariff.
Canada has said it will retaliate with a 25 per cent import tax on a multitude of American products, including wine, cigarettes and shotguns.
The tariffs have touched off a range of emotions along the world's longest international border, where residents and industries are closely intertwined. Ranchers in Canada rely on American companies for farm equipment, and export cattle and hogs to U.S. meat processors. U.S. consumers enjoy thousands of gallons of Canadian maple syrup each year. Canadian dogs and cats dine on U.S.-made pet food.
The trade dispute will have far-reaching spillover effects, from price increases and paperwork backlogs to longer wait times at the U.S.-Canada border for both people and products, said Laurie Trautman, director of the Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University.
"These industries on both sides are built up out of a cross-border relationship, and disruptions will play out on both sides," Trautman said.
Even the threat of tariffs may have already caused irreparable harm, she said.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has urged Canadians to buy Canadian products and vacation at home.
The Associated Press wanted to know what residents and businesses were thinking along the border that Reagan vowed would remain unburdened by an "invisible barrier of economic suspicion and fear.
Detroit, Mich.-Windsor, Ont.
The Detroit River is all that separates Windsor, Ontario, from Detroit. The cities are so close that Detroiters can smell the drying grain at Windsor's Hiram Walker distillery and Windsor can hear the music drifting from Detroit's outdoor concert venues.
Manufacturing muscle makes the Ambassador Bridge, the 2.25-kilometre-long span connecting the two cities, the busiest international crossing in North America. According to the Michigan company that owns the bridge, $323 million USD worth of goods travel each day between Windsor and Detroit, the automotive capitals of their countries.
The U.S., Canada and Mexico have long operated as one nation when it comes to auto manufacturing, noted Pat D'Eramo, CEO of Vaughan, Ontario-based automotive suppler Martinrea. Tariffs will cause confusion and disruption, he said.
Right now, steel coils arrive at a plant in Michigan and get stamped into parts that are shipped to Martinrea in Canada. Martinrea uses the parts to build vehicle sub-assemblies that get shipped back to an automaker in Detroit.
A White House official told The Associated Press that parts would be taxed twice if they crossed the border multiple times, but it's unclear if suppliers or their customers will have to pay for the tariffs. Also unclear is how a separate 25 per cent levy on steel and aluminum that Trump said would take effect starting March 12 factors into the mix.
D'Eramo understands the impulse to strengthen U.S. manufacturing but says the U.S. doesn't have the capacity to make all the tooling Martinrea would need if it were to shift production there. At the end of the day, he thinks it's sad tariffs will take up so much time, energy and resources, and only make vehicles even more expensive.
"We need to be spending our time and money to get more efficient and reduce our costs so customers can reduce their costs," he said.
Buffalo, N.Y.-Fort Erie, Ont.
Buffalo, N.Y., is, decidedly, a beer town. It's also a border town.
That makes for a complementary relationship. Western New York's dozens of craft breweries rely on Canada for aluminum cans and much of the malted grain that goes into their brews. Canadians regularly cross one of the four international bridges into the region to shop, go to sporting events and sip Buffalo's beers.
Brewers and other businesses fear there may be less of that, though, if the tariffs on Canada and aluminum go into effect. Trump's repeated comments about making the neighbouring nation the 51st U.S. state already offended its citizens - so much so that Buffalo's tourism agency paused a campaign running in Canada because of negative comments.
"Obviously, having a bad taste in their mouth and booing the national anthem at sporting events is not a great thing for them coming down here and drinking our beer and hanging out in our city," said Jeff Ware, president of Resurgence Brewing Co.
The historic factory building housing Ware's business in Buffalo is about 6.4 kilometres from the Peace Bridge border crossing, where 1.8 million cars and buses and 518,000 commercial trucks entered Buffalo from Ontario last year.
It's a terrible time to alienate customers, Canadian or American. The snowy first months of the year are hard enough for Buffalo's breweries, Ware said. Higher prices from 25 per cent tariffs would be yet another obstacle. Ware gets about 80 per cent of the base malt be uses to make his specialty beers from Canada.
"Labour is more expensive, energy is more expensive, all of our raw ingredients are more expensive," he said. "It's death by a thousand cuts."
With files from Dee-Ann Durbin and Sally Ho