My home town of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario has been featured in an article (gift link) in the New York Times. The subject is, of course, the ongoing tariff war between the US and Canada, and how it's affecting the Sault (or just Soo, if you're local). It's not affecting it in a good way.
To cite just one example:
More than half of the steel produced in Sault Ste. Marie used to be shipped to the United States, and the 50 percent tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have devastated the company’s finances.
In March, Algoma Steel, one of only three major Canada-based steel producers, abruptly laid off 1,000 workers it had planned to phase out over two or more years through retirements and reassignments.
Mr. Shoemaker believes the real toll could reach 3,000 jobs, once the layoffs’ full impact makes its way through the city’s broader economy. And things are not getting better soon.
This makes me sad. Growing up in the Soo, my family and friends never paid much thought to the border. My eye doctor was across the river in Soo, Michigan. I had an exhibit in a science fair at Lake Superior State University. My parents would gas up the car over there and come back with cheap bread and I'd bring back Estes model rocket engines (you couldn't buy them in Canada). In later years, when I was visiting family, we'd go over the bridge to the casino to lose money and see a concert.
But for most people, that's now changed. Traffic across the bridge dropped by 25 percent last year and is staying down. If I'll be going across the river to visit family, I'll leave my phone at home. But that's the only way I'll be visiting the US as long as Trump or the Republicans are in power.
