For more on the impact of the tariffs on the United States and Canada, we're joined now by Matthew Shoemaker.

He is the mayor of Sous St.

Marie, Ontario.

That's a Canadian city just across the border from its sister city, Sous Staint Marie, Michigan.

Mayor Shoemaker, welcome to the NewsHour.

Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

So, your city, Sue, Ontario as it's called, is separated by just a bridge from Sue, Michigan.

It's the ninth busiest border crossing between the US and Canada.

For anyone who hasn't been there before all of these tariffs went into place, just how closely have your two communities been tied?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, for uh generations, the Twin S have been a place where it really is, we call it one nation, one city across two nations.

And uh it is a place where shopping on either side of the border is common, whether you're American or Canadian.

uh doing recreational activities on the on the Canadian side of the border is common.

So, it really is uh an extension of our own community and something that uh is part of the way of life here in uh the Twin S. So, not unusual to find Red Wings or Lions fans in Sue, Ontario either.

Not at all.

Lots of Tigers fans this time of year.

The Tigers and the Jays are in a hard battle for playoff spots, but I know that there's lots of people in the Sue cheering for the Tigers.

So, we should also note your city, Sue, Ontario, is a steel town.

What kind of impact have the steel tariff that President Trump put in place had on your community?

Yeah, they've had a really uh significant impact and our community's to some extent been here before.

During the first Trump presidency, there were the 25% steel tariffs that affected Aloma Steel.

At the time, they said they were losing a million dollars a day as a result of 25% tariffs.

And then throughout this term, the tariffs the tariff rate was at 25% from the beginning of the Trump presidency essentially to last summer when it increased to 50%.

And it looked like there was going to be some relief over the past several weeks as the negotiations were ongoing on reducing sectoral tariffs broadly.

But of course those negotiations fell apart and uh we continue to feel u real uh economic impact in terms of job losses in terms of losses at Aloma Steel itself from the 50% steel tariffs which is the main driver in our local economy.

And because your two communities are so closely aligned, if your community is hurting economically, what does that mean for Sue, Michigan across the border?

Yeah, we've got the uh unique distinction of being one of the very few Canadian cities that is larger than its American counterpart.

Typically, you've got Windsor and Detroit where Detroit's larger.

You've got Niagara Falls and Buffalo where Buffalo's larger.

Here in the Sue, we're about in Twin Suss about five times larger than the American city.

So the retail, the restaurants, um the uh the the the the coffee shops on the American side rely on Canadians going across uh and spending the dollars that they earn uh or derive from the steel plant.

So it really does have a significant economic impact in Sue Michigan when Sue Ontario is not doing well and right now Sue Ontario is hurting as a result of decisions being made in Washington.

So, did your constituents want to see these retaliatory tariffs go into place?

I mean, what's the mood on the ground when it comes to pushing back against US policy right now?

Yeah, I think there's a real desire to see a push back on the American policy for uh quite some time.

uh the steel plant has been under uh the the you know the uh facing the impacts I would say of of the 50% steel tariffs and we've tried to negotiate our way out of those.

We've tried to uh create Canadian supply chains and Canadian markets for uh Canadian steel but the reality is uh without retaliatory tariffs it felt like it was um a fight we were fighting with one arm tied behind our back.

So when those negotiations did fall apart, uh I think one of the only real options left was retaliatory tariffs, it is u the type of thing that to protect a domestic steel economy, if we want to have steel plants in the future, we're going to have to um uh invest in and protect our Canadian steel making.

Otherwise, we will lose the capacity to do it whatsoever.

We've seen some really fiery rhetoric from the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford.

I mean, you don't quite hit that level of fiery rhetoric here, but does he capture sort of the anger on your side of the border right now?

Absolutely.

I think that the, you know, um the the insults that we have had coming towards our prime minister and towards our premier uh have been uh unwarranted.

They've been unwelcome.

And uh people are have have had it uh with those types of insults.

And I think that's the mood that you saw our premier express and the frustration that was uh flowing from him uh resulted in that type of uh that type of uh you know language back.

And it's it's unfortunate because we're coming up on you know several days from now, the anniversary of September 11th when Canadians opened their airports, their homes to Americans who had to uh uh land in Canadian airspace or land in Canadian airports at the time.

We fought alongside the American uh military in Afghanistan as a result of uh that those terrorism attacks and uh you know you've seen uh residents answering with their wallets.

Bridge traffic is down 30% from its standard numbers.

Uh the number of people uh cancelling vacations at least what we hear anecdotally locally is significant.

Nobody is uh going across to Sue Michigan to golf anymore in the summer.

And so there is a real economic impact that uh people are you know voting with their wallets so to speak on how they feel about these tariffs.

All right, that is Matthew Shoemaker.

He's mayor of Sue St.

Marie, Ontario in Canada.

Mr.

Mayor, thank you so much for your time.

Thanks for having me.