Border traffic from Manitoba to North Dakota reduced to trickle as tariffs come into effect

It's like a ghost town — that's how the owner of the Emerson Duty Free shop at the Manitoba-United States border described the highway leading to the crossing after new tariffs kicked in.

Simon Resch said vehicles are usually lined up "by the dozens, sometimes by the hundreds" to head into the U.S., but after a 25 per cent tariff came in Tuesday, it went down to a trickle.

"I've been here now for a couple of hours and I've counted two trucks leaving Manitoba. That is unprecedented. We have never seen that," Resch told CBC News a couple of days after U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs took effect and before Trump announced they would be paused for some items until April 2.

There was more traffic during COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, Resch said, when international trade was still happening.

Dave Carlson, reeve of the Manitoba municipality of Emerson-Franklin, which abuts the international boundary, said the combination of the tariffs and Trump's rhetoric about making Canada the 51st state has insulted Canadians.

"It's a spat we're having and I think it's definitely affected people's travel plans. From what I'm hearing, there's a lot of people that are not going to be spending their money in the United States, at least in the short term, until things get settled," he said. 

"I was talking to a friend of mine that works for CBSA [Canada Border Services Agency] and he said [border traffic] is way down."

Carlson didn't have exact numbers but he believes the drop is in the 40-50 per cent range, "which is huge," he said.

"That's a lot of traffic that's not not moving across the border."

Gurbir Boparai, director of Manitoba-based trucking company Canadian Prairie Transport, said he's trying to "weather the storm" but has already felt the impacts.

His company had about seven delivery cancellations on Tuesday alone, he told CBC News. 

"There are a lot of customers who are putting the shipments on hold. They are not allowing us to cross the border with those shipments and they're just waiting to see what happens," he said.

"It will affect our day-to-day operation in every aspect because if businesses are doing less business, then definitely consumers are going to consume less products [and] there will be less movement of the freight."

For the most part, the shipments that were cancelled were produce, auto parts and some agricultural products, like seeds and other raw materials, Boparai said before Trump announced the pause.

"As the situation evolves, I think we will have a better idea what sort of industries are impacted more," he said.

At the same time, he was counting on it not to get to that point.

"We hope it is not long-term. No one wants a trade war. It's not healthy for the business, for the economies, right?" he said.

"With every day passing, it will do damage a lot. If tariffs continue for a longer period of time … it means less business will be done within Canada and the U.S., which means there will be less work for us. Less work means less revenue, and less revenue does a lot of damage."'

The slowdown in traffic has impacted border communities and others along the routes people would take if they were heading down to the U.S. from Manitoba, Carlson said.

"If you're not getting that, the travellers going through, it makes a difference," he said.

"Our hopes are that this trade thing gets resolved very quickly. Our economies are so integrated.… You can't just turn around on a dime and have a new supply chain pop up."

While there have been calls in some places to remove the American flag from municipal buildings as a sign of resistance to the U.S., Carlson said that's not something his community would likely follow.

"We're friends and neighbours and we have a lot of family ties across the border and we even have mutual aid agreements with our emergency services. We don't want to degrade those relationships," he said.

"This is kind of the fight with Ottawa and Washington right now. Locally, we'd like to keep it civil, but I understand the sentiment."

If there is one good thing to come out of the current situation, however, it's the resurgence of Canadian pride, Carlson said.

"For many years, people weren't overly patriotic, and now patriotism is really rising to the top. So there can be some pluses with this," he said.

"As well, I've never had so many people that aren't normally interested in business or trade talking about it. So it's really got us shaken up and and thinking about what we need to do to be successful going forward as a country."