Feeling 'the squeeze': US border town 'an early victim of Donald Trump'

For generations, residents of American and Canadian border towns — from New York State, Minnesota, Michigan and Maine on the U.S. side to Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia on the Canadian side — have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship. Canadians have a long history of spending money in the United States, and Americans have a long history of spending money in Canada.

But Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney believes that U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war is damaging a relationship that has been quite profitable for both countries. And he is warning that Trump's policies will hurt all the border states that benefit economically from their Canadian neighbors.

In an article published The New Republic on June 10, journalist Chris Cannon takes a look at Point Roberts, Washington — a border town that is now struggling thanks to Trump's tariffs.

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"Point Roberts' economy isn’t just dependent on tourists — it's almost entirely dependent on Canadian tourists, making this five-square-mile spit of land a unique barometer of the U.S.-Canada relationship," Cannon reports. "When Canada closed its border at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the town's economy shrunk by 80 percent more or less overnight. Point Roberts spent the next 19 months cut off from Mainland Canada and the rest of the United States. It had only just begun to find its legs when, in January, its economy collapsed again — this time, maybe for good."

Cannon adds, "Surviving a global pandemic is one thing. Surviving Donald Trump is another."

The journalist notes that even before Trump's inauguration, Port Roberts and other border towns "felt the squeeze" thanks to his tariff threats and saying he would use "economic force" to make Canada "the 51st state."

Nick Kiniski, who owns the restaurant/bar Kiniski’s Reef in Port Roberts, told The New Republic he has decided to sell the business.

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Kiniski told The New Republic, "It's very hard to do business in Point Roberts. This is the first time in 38 years that I actually bartended by myself…. It’s rough times. There's not a whole lot I can do. It's out of my control, and I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I just wanna sell the bar (and) move on."

Kiniski's struggling business, according to Cannon, proves that "Point Roberts can't survive without Canadian visitors — and the Canadians aren’t coming."

"Point Roberts is shrinking, shuttering, exhausted," Cannon laments. "The quirky little exclave has become an early victim of Donald Trump's trade war, and a potent metaphor for the fraying relationship between the United States and Canada. Addressing the Canadian Parliament in June 2016, President Barack Obama delivered a simple message: 'The world needs more Canada.' Now America is getting less."

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Read Chris Cannon's full article for The New Republic at this link.