Stand on the riverbank in Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit is directly in front of you. It’s not quite spitting distance but it’s swimmable.
Canada‘s auto capital and America‘s motor city are divided by the Detroit River, tied by the Ambassador’s Bridge which transports $323m (£260m) worth of goods between Canada and the US every day.
Donald Trump‘s threatened 25% tariff on all Canadian exports – with a carve-out for energy at 10% – would have weighed heavy here, and that’s putting it mildly. Car parts can criss-cross the border multiple times before they roll off the finish line in either Detroit or Windsor.
The tariff would have put tens of thousands of jobs on the line in Ontario – in the auto industry, in agriculture, and in the energy sector too.
So the one-month pause – announced on Monday after last-minute talks between Mr Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – is a huge relief.
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Drew Dilkens, the mayor of Windsor, told Sky News: “25% across the board is catastrophic. It’s not even a hard response, it is a catastrophic response.
“We just hope not to be back in this same situation with the amount of uncertainty that we felt 30 days from now.”
The mayor announced on Monday that he would suspend funding for the cross-border tunnel bus, which transports 40,000 Canadians to Detroit each year for shopping or entertainment, or whatever it is they might choose to do there.
“If I’m under economic attack by our best friend and closest trading partner, I absolutely do not want to subsidise and support bringing transit to their community to help with their economic development,” he said.
In a liquor store in Windsor, the shelves are still stacked with American whisky and Californian wines.
“You’re still selling that stuff?” one customer asks a sheepish-looking salesman.
Ontario premier Doug Ford had ordered stores to remove American liquor starting Tuesday if the tariffs went into effect. That order is now on hold, along with his announcement that he would rip up Ontario’s $68m (£55m) contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink to provide internet access to rural homes. But they could be reinstated in an instant.
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“Trump’s an idiot,” says James Summerfield, who stops to chat on the street. “He’s trying to get money from every angle he possibly can, to be the ‘best president’ there’s ever been, but most likely he’s the worst president we’ve ever had on that side of the border.
“I don’t think anyone from Canada thinks we’re going to pay to ship their cars over there.”
In a local car repair workshop, a group of workers are tucking into a lunch of hummus and falafel which they generously offer around.
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“We have a lot of power when it comes to them receiving electricity and energy,” Jin tells us. “None of this is going to be good. Like both sides are going to lose if the tariff ends up going through.”
For now, the mood feels more like a fragile truce than a crisis averted.
“No one wants to support a bully,” mayor Dilkens says. “We’re close friends, we’re close neighbours. One president of the United States is not going to disrupt centuries of friendship. It’s just going to be choppy waters for the next three years and 11 months.”
