WINDSOR, ON. (WXYZ) — Only about a mile separates Detroit in the United States and Windsor, Ontario in Canada. Despite their close proximity, many Canadians we spoke to in the Windsor area say the first 100 days of President Donald Trump's administration have caused an unexpected strain in the relationship.
"We're not trying to be confrontational or adversarial or whatever. We’re just trying to be supportive of our country," Paul Susko, a Windsor resident, said.
Susko said his Canadian flag went up a few weeks ago, and many of his neighbors' flags are new, too, mostly put up in response to recent trade tensions and tense rhetoric with the United States.
"Some of the threats of annexation, the 51st state nonsense, we find it more insulting than a joke," Susko said.
"We’re like a good neighbor, like a brother or sister, and it feels like he’s turned on us," Shannon Winters, another Windsor resident, said.
Winters told me she has felt a shift in U.S.-Canadian relations. Like Susko, her once regular trips across the border have come to a halt and she finds herself avoiding American-made products.
“So there's a real effort you think by many Canadians to not travel to the United States, to not buy American products?" I asked.
"100%. It's like giving a message. The ordinary person can give a message like, 'we're not supporting this,'" Winters said.
While they aren't American citizens, U.S. politics has had a direct impact on the Canadians in Windsor. Winters' son-in-law, Paul, is one of roughly 6,000 Canadians in the area who work in the U.S. He's an avid Detroit fan, and both have felt their lives change.
"I really hate what he’s done in making us the bad guy. Why? Why would you do that?" Winters said.
"None of us felt that we would be enemies of the U.S., and that's the feeling right now," Susko said.
"Did you ever think when opening a bourbon bar that you would have an issue getting bourbon because of trade issues with the U.S.?" I asked George Marar, the co-owner of Bourbon Tap & Grill.
"Never. Never, I mean we've always been supporting the U.S. as a country and together as one, it’s heartbreaking to see everything happening like this," Marar said.
His bar offers around 50 bourbons, but bourbon is only made in the U.S., and Ontario halted all imports of American-made alcohol in response to recent U.S. tariffs.
"It's not just the bourbons. It's the California wines,” he said.
While he stocked up before the ban went into effect, the longer trade tension lasts, the thinner his supply gets.
"We're pushing Canadian Club, we’re pushing Crown Royal and doing the substitutions where we have to," Marar said. "We're just going with the flow right now but hopefully it doesn't get to the point where we don't have any bourbon at all."
"We're at the 100-day mark and I don't know when it’s going to end," Susko said. "We'd love things to get back to the way they were but it doesn't look like that’s on the horizon, unfortunately."
