For decades, residents of Detroit, Mich., and Windsor, Ontario, across the river in Canada, have had close ties. A month into President Trump’s second term, relations have deteriorated.
DON GONYEA, HOST:
As a Detroit native and current resident of the city, I’ve had a front-row seat to what President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs are doing to U.S. relations with Canada, not to mention his recent comments about turning it into the 51st state. In fact, there may be no better real-time example of the deterioration than the long-standing bond between my hometown and its neighbor across the river, Windsor, Ontario. I took NPR producer Lauren Hodges to Detroit’s Riverside Park under the Ambassador Bridge, where we could look across the Detroit River to Canada, not even a half-mile away.
This is the busiest commercial border crossing in North America. The Ambassador Bridge is right there, to our right, a still-under-construction second span called the Gordie Howe International Bridge, named after Canadian native and Detroit hockey great Gordie Howe. And that bridge, to me, named after Howe, symbolizes the many connections between the U.S. and Canada and this narrow span that separates them. I grew up on the Detroit side, watching Canadian television, listening to Canadian radio stations. “Hockey Night In Canada” was a regular staple in our house.
Friends on the Windsor side work in Detroit, come over to watch Detroit Tigers or Detroit Lions games in person. Detroiters eat in their restaurants. Windsorites eat in our restaurants. It’s just kind of amazing the connections between the people of these two cities. All of this place kind of wrapped up in a single identity, some of us Americans, some of us Canadians.
We then made the very short drive across the river and pulled out our passports at the border. At the checkpoint, we got the standard questions. Where are we headed? What’s our business in Canada? Do we have any weapons in the car? Then the customs officer quickly turned into a concierge, giving us recommendations for lunch.
LAUREN HODGES, BYLINE: What’s the restaurant called?
UNIDENTIFIED CUSTOMS OFFICER: It’s called Twisted Apron. Closes at 3.
HODGES: Thank you so much.
GONYEA: All right, thanks.
UNIDENTIFIED CUSTOMS OFFICER: Bye-bye.
GONYEA: Yeah.
Welcome to Canada (laughter). Have you ever had a border crossing experience like that?
HODGES: I really, really haven’t.
GONYEA: And that kind of hospitality isn’t just on the Canadian side. In fact, there’s a pretty famous bus tour run by a local Windsor business that takes Canadians into Detroit for an hourslong bar crawl.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ADRIANO CIOTOLI: We’re taking you on a boozy adventure through the grittiest, most iconic dive bars the Motor City has to offer. You’ll hop on the most epic party bus of your life, where the good times roll and the karaoke never stops. Between bars, you and your crew will be belting out your favorite tunes and living it up like rock stars. These tours are legendary and sell out faster than you can say cheers. So do you have your passport ready?
GONYEA: That voice is Adriano Ciotoli, who runs WindsorEats, an event planning business that highlights local food and activities around Windsor. But he says Detroit was always included.
CIOTOLI: Visiting sporting games, events, concerts. That’s almost a rite of passage for a lot of Windsorites to kind of jump on the tunnel bus, head over, get dropped off on Detroit and just wander around and just enjoy a day or two or a weekend in Detroit.
GONYEA: And while it’s been an extremely popular piece of his business, usually selling out, even in the colder months, he’s also aware that the tours really help out some of those smaller bars on the Detroit side.
CIOTOLI: There’s another one in Hamtramck which would reach out to us after every tour and essentially tell us, you know, you made us able to keep our lights on at the end of the month. They were so thankful every time that we would visit them.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “DANCING IN THE STREET”)
MARTHA AND THE VANDELLAS: (Singing) Can forget the Motor City. Dancing in the street.
GONYEA: But since Donald Trump’s reelection and all the rhetoric that’s been hurled at Canada…
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think they have to become the 51st state.
GONYEA: …WindsorEats made the tough decision to pause the beloved Detroit bar crawl.
CIOTOLI: And it’s unfortunate that, you know, in the grand scheme of things, it’s little businesses like this that are – and people that are going to be hurt.
GONYEA: Ciotoli calls what the U.S. administration is doing a very personal attack.
CIOTOLI: It is kind of like when your best friend goes and stabs you in the back.
GONYEA: It’s a common thread among Windsorites we interviewed, a sense of betrayal. And though the potential tariffs are the more immediate and economic threat, as Trump lays out here….
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I think Canada, you know, they’re going to have to pay tariffs on automobiles, lumber, and oil and gas, etc., etc.
GONYEA: …It’s Trump’s repeated talk of Canada as the 51st state that really seems to rile people up the most.
DREW DILKENS: You know, it’s just sort of preposterous for us to think about this, that we’re at this point in time, and we’re not even quite sure how we got there.
GONYEA: That’s Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens. We drove to his office at City Hall, downtown, where we saw many flags in red and white with the iconic maple leaf hanging from apartment balconies and local businesses. Dilkens is also a big fan of the Tigers and the Lions and, just like many Windsor natives, has many fond memories of traveling into the U.S. to cheer on Detroit sports teams in person. And remember when Canadian hockey fans booed the U.S. national anthem at an NHL game in Montreal this month?
(BOOING)
GONYEA: Then, a few nights ago, U.S. fans in Boston reciprocated by booing the singing of “O Canada.”
(BOOING)
GONYEA: Mayor Dilkens is saddened by all of it. But even as he has taken steps, official ones, to make a statement, he ended city subsidies for a transit service that helps fund an hourly commuter bus to Detroit for his constituents.
DILKENS: I just can’t act as an economic engine to Detroit at a time when we’re being economically threatened by the president of the United States. Just can’t get my mind around it.
GONYEA: And one more thing got sacrificed as relations started to ice over. The mayor pulled the city’s sponsorship of the annual Detroit Grand Prix.
DILKENS: And in true Canadian form, let me tell you, I apologize for having to do that. And I recognize it’s a pebble in the ocean, like, the rippling. I’m not changing the world by doing these two things, right? But it’s a signal.
GONYEA: Dilkens knows that stuff like canceling bus lines and sponsorships might seem small.
DILKENS: I don’t have any other arrows in the quiver, right? I have nothing else I can fire back. I have nothing else I can do. I have no other way except using my voice to express my dissatisfaction in my feeling about this.
GONYEA: A sign of more than just hurt feelings, he says he’s even heard rhetoric accusing Canada of taking advantage of the U.S., specifically within the auto industry. And he has a passionate response to that, as well.
DILKENS: No, we built it together. We have built this thing together. When Chrysler announces they’re building a new car factory in Detroit, like, we would light fireworks off here because we think that’s amazing for our region – just as you should celebrate when we build a $6 billion battery factory. That raises your boat as well in the United States. It’s great for everybody.
GONYEA: Meanwhile, in a recent speech, the chairman of the Ford Motor Company warned that the threatened tariffs and their impact on tight supply chains would, quote, “blow a hole” in the auto industry that would affect both countries. Mayor Dilkens, meanwhile, says it’s more than pride, that it’s all very scary.
DILKENS: And none of us are foolish enough to think that the United States doesn’t have the military might if they want and choose to take over Canada. We’d put up a good fight. We’d probably lose. We know that. But the thought that that’s where we are, all of a sudden, with a snap of a finger, is abhorrent to us. You have to understand Canadians. Like, they’ll just become more – it’s a rallying cry to pull together even tighter.
GONYEA: So as evening approaches, we head back over the river and into Detroit. Our next stop is one of the dive bars from the canceled tour. Then we get a text.
HODGES: Oh, it’s her.
GONYEA: It’s the bar owner. She won’t be there. In fact, she says, they’re not open much anymore these days.
NPR’s Lauren Hodges produced this piece.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO”)
THE SUPREMES: (Singing) Where did our love go?
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