Thousands fear for their jobs as major city is forced to break up with 'best friends' across Canadian border
The Michigan metropolis on Canada's border has seen traffic from neighboring Windsor drop and suffering businesses slash jobs.
Business leaders and elected officials are concerned that the White House's policies are forcing the sister cities in to an unwanted 'break up.'
'It's a border that exists, but it's not anything that culturally has ever been an issue,' Ryan Donally, chief executive of the Windsor Essex Chamber of Commerce, told the Financial Times.
'So for this trade war... to start breaking down the social fabric between Detroit and Windsor, it's even more hurtful, because quite frankly, it's not just business, it's not just a tax,' Donally explained.
'This has damaged the cultural relationship between two best friends.'
One of the most critical links between Detroit and Windsor is the car industry, which is currently under a 25 percent tariff.
Detroit, known as Motor City, has long been a destination for auto manufacturing and has welcomed substantial industry investment in recent years a fter suffering decades of decline.
However, the industry relies on cross-border collaboration. Companies such as Stellantis and Ford build car parts in Windsor and thousands of Canadians travel over the border every day to work in plants in Detroit.
Trump's car tariff has already led to layoffs in Windsor with some members of the Canadian Tooling & Machine Association cutting half their workers.
Among them is Louis Jahn, owner of Jahn Engineering in Windsor, who has cut his 70-person staff by 20 percent after his orders from American carmakers disappeared due to the cost of tariffs.
Jahn told the FT that like many businesses he will be forced to raise prices.
'In the end, consumers are going to pay for it,' he said.
As well as the car industry, 6,000 Canadian healthcare workers cross the border every day to work in Detroit's hospitals and doctors offices.
18 percent fewer people are arriving in the US via the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel compared to the same time last year, according to the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel Corporation.
While commuting remains consistent, those traveling from Canada to Detroit to visit family or friends or for leisure has dipped.
Deteriorating relations also led Windsor mayor Drew Dilkens to cancel funding for an hourly bus service between the cities.
It would cost the Canadian city $1.4 million a year to run, and Dilkens said Trump's rhetoric - including threatening to annex Canada into the 51st state - has made it impossible to ask for taxpayer money to fund it.
'We feel like we're under attack by the president of the United States,' he told the FT.
Detroit is not the only border city that is feeling the sharp end of Trump tariffs.
Buffalo and Niagara have both been hit by large downturns in Canadian visits.
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