Donald Trump’s policy of pissing off Canada is killing income and jobs in our small northern border towns:
Deb Weigel…[is] the manager of Corner Parcel in Pembina, a town of 500 in the northeast corner of North Dakota, right on the border with Minnesota and Canada.
The shop caters exclusively to Canadians, helping them avoid international shipping costs by acting as their U.S. address. It’s one of many in Pembina.
The business model depends on Canadians crossing the border, but fewer of them are. Many say they’re feeling cold about America because of President Trump’s tariffs and rhetoric about annexing Canada.
The number of passengers crossing the Pembina border was down by nearly 35 percent in 2025 compared to 2024, according to data from the Bureau of Transportation.
Weigel’s shop has been hit hard. She said they’re getting less than half of the packages they used to and have cut their staff significantly, down from at least six workers a shift to just one.
…The parcel business has been particularly affected, but other border town businesses said they’re feeling it too.. Pembina’s grocery store, D & K Grocery, has been owned by Deanna Hager and her husband for more than 20 years.
Canadians would frequently cross the border to buy food that’s expensive or hard to get back home. But now, business is down by 15 percent because of a decline in Canadian customers, she said [Harshawn Ratanpal, “Fewer Canadian Shoppers Leave Border Businesses Struggling,” MPR News, 2026.07.20].
Those two anecdotes are part of broader economic damage up north:
In every county with a rural point of entry, jobs in the retail sector and the leisure and hospitality sector were down last year, according to data from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development [Ratanpal, 2026.07.20].
Funny Trump doesn’t hand out tariff reparations to the border businesses he’s hurting the way he does for farmers.