Shopowner at the Canada/US border says tariff uncertainty has caused “virtually an elimination” of semi trucks heading south

The owner of a duty free shop at the US/Canada border says that the number of trucks heading into the United States has dropped drastically since the discussion of tariffs started. 

Simon Resch, the owner of a duty free shop along the border in Emerson, Manitoba, Canada says that the border has seen a huge slowdown in traffic since talks about tariffs began. He says his family hasn’t seen border traffic so slow in the 40 years they’ve owned the shop, especially when it comes to commercial vehicle traffic. 

“This is eerily reminiscent to the pandemic, except this time, we don’t really see the trucks,” he said. “During the pandemic, the border was closed, leisure travel was obviously shut … but trucks were still moving between Canada and the U.S. This time we see virtually an elimination of southbound … travel,” he said to Global News Canada. 

Resch says that a typical weekday would see hundreds of trucks lined up on Highway 75 to take goods from Manitoba into the US, but recently he’s only seen a couple of semi trucks cross the border at a time. 

“There’s about $31 billion a year that gets exchanged right here. It’s the largest trade border crossing between the Great Lakes and the Pacific Ocean, and not seeing the trucks is crazy. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The Manitoba Trucking Association says that its members are wary of shipping goods across the border until they know exactly if, how, and when the goods will be subject to tariffs.