Trump’s tariff threats stress WA’s Point Roberts

If you look at a map of Washington, you’ll notice a tiny strip of land to the west, detached from the rest of the state but connected to a Canadian peninsula. Washington residents who are not Canadian citizens but live in Point Roberts must drive 25 miles through two border crossings if they want access to doctors, vets and schools. As of the latest census data, just over 1,200 people live in the nearly 5-square-mile Whatcom County exclave.

It’s an odd place to be as President Donald Trump threatens tariffs on all Canadian import and imposes 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, leading to hurt feelings on the Canadian side. As things stand, the broader tariffs won’t go into effect until March 1 at the earliest. As they wait, Point Roberts residents and border experts are concerned about what that could mean for the small community and Washington as a whole.

Brian Calder is the former president of the local Chamber of Commerce and a longtime resident in Point Roberts. He said the community barely survived COVID-19 lockdowns, and he is worried about how the tariffs will impact the town even further. Border crossings into Point Roberts have decreased dramatically since the pandemic, as has tourism. Several restaurants and businesses have since shuttered.

Calder noted that 90% of the Point Roberts economic activity comes from Canada, and that all of the water and electricity for residents comes from Canada, which he maintains makes the exclave unique.

“And if you say we’re unique, then we need a unique solution. You can’t say one size fits all when you’ve got an anomaly,” he said.

Calder said he is not a fan of the rhetoric coming from Canadian leaders such as British Columbia Premier David Eby who is encouraging Canadians not to buy U.S. goods. He thinks it further sows division between Canadians and Americans. Calder sent a letter to Eby in late January asking for a retaliatory tariff exemption for Point Roberts on a “humanitarian basis,” but said he has not heard back.

Ali Hayton owns the International Marketplace, the only supermarket in Point Roberts. She said she’s also frustrated with the buy Canadian campaign, saying it is “taking away any livelihood” she has left, noting how difficult the last five years have been and how weak the Canadian dollar is compared with the U.S. dollar.

“It’s really just kind of uncertain right now what it’s going to look like up here if things don’t change pretty quickly,” Hayton added.

In the past two weeks, she has already noticed a difference. Sales are down 20%.

She said there are some things the president is doing that she is “grateful for and happy about,” but the tariffs are not one of them.

Experts are concerned too.

Laurie Trautman, director at the Border Policy Research Institute with Western Washington University, said it is difficult to tell what impacts the tariffs could have on border towns like Point Roberts because things have not been normal since COVID.

“We haven’t reached that new normal, so it becomes a little bit more difficult to figure out what those potential impacts would be,” she said.

Trautman agreed with Hayton and Calder’s assessments that whether or not the tariffs end up going into effect, the harm has already been done just by the increase in tensions.

“I think so often when there’s conflict between two countries, the border communities, they’re both at the margins of that conflict, and they suffer the most,” she added.

U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Everett, has been in contact with Point Roberts residents about their concerns, according to his spokesperson.

“Tariffs will raise prices and threaten economic stability for all Americans, but Northwest Washington communities will be hit particularly hard,” Larsen said in a statement. “Point Roberts has long faced unique challenges as an exclave community, many of which were exacerbated by the pandemic. Tariffs will make the challenges faced by Point Roberts residents even worse.”

Washington’s 2nd Congressional District, which encompasses Point Roberts, and stretches from Bellingham and the border down to the Skagit and Snohomish county lines, exports $1.5 billion a year in goods including equipment and machinery, energy, and minerals and metals to Canada, according to the Canadian Embassy. Canada exports $250 million in services to the district annually. The 125 Canadian-owned businesses in the district also employ more than 2,200 people.

Canada is Washington’s largest trade partner for both imports and exports, with $9.6 billion in goods exported from Washington to Canada annually. Washington imports $21 billion annually in goods.

More broadly, there are also concerns about the overall impact of tariffs on the state of Washington.

State House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, noted Washington is particularly at risk as the state depends heavily on trade. She said the state would face a significant economic impact, but it’s still unclear what that means in terms of housing, and goods and services.

Brionna Aho, deputy communications director for Gov. Bob Ferguson, said in an email that Ferguson is “deeply concerned about the likelihood that these tariffs will raise prices for groceries and other products families rely on, increase costs for Washington businesses for whom Canada is their number one market, and needlessly depress revenues for our state during an already difficult budget year.”

Ferguson and Eby, the B.C. premier, met virtually on Feb. 6 for an introductory call to discuss trade policy and committed to work together to promote constructive solutions to shared challenges, she said.

Eby and other Canadian premiers met with Trump’s advisers two weeks ago to discuss the tariffs.

In a statement, Marielle Tounsi, a spokesperson for Eby, said the office knows “these unjustified tariffs would bring pain for people on both sides of the border, and that is why they don’t make sense.”

“So many Americans are our friends and family, and we have such good relationships with them,” the statement said. “This is not a fight we have signed up for, and it’s not a fight we want to be having.”

While the office waits to see how things unfold, planning continues, Tounsi said. The measures the office was looking at were “focusing on the red states, so Washington state was not an initial target of response measures.”

That’s of little comfort for those in Port Roberts, but Hayton said, whatever happens in the coming weeks, her neighbors are “ready to ride the storm.”