US border towns crushed by Canadian boycott over Trumps trade war: report

Enraged Canadians are boycotting American goods in the face of President Trump’s trade war – and small US businesses along the northern border are feeling the brunt of the financial pain, according to a report.Trump’s 25% tariff on Canadian imports and threats to annex the nation have shut the spigot of regular visits over the border to patronize US restaurants and grocery stores, Bloomberg reported.Border crossings from Canada into the US plunged more than 22% in March compared to the year before, according to US Customs and Border Protection data.The sparsely-populated Washington state town of Point Roberts is among those that are suffering.Located about 20 miles south of Vancouver at the bottom of a peninsula, Point Roberts is surrounded by water on three sides with its sole land access through Canada – making it heavily dependent on sales to Canadians.“We do not survive without Canada.We just don’t,” Ali Hayton, owner of the main grocery store in Point Roberts, said during a roundtable meeting about the crisis.Some stores in the town use cash registers with two drawers, with one for Canadian dollars and one for the US, while other businesses have slashed their exchange rates in an attempt to win over customers, according to Bloomberg.At the Peace Arch, located near Point Roberts in Blaine, Wash., Canadian southbound traffic is down 52% in the first two weeks of April compared to last year.Hayton said sales at her grocery store are down 30% compared to this time last year, forcing her to slash stock orders and lower her exchange rate.Some of the Canadian visitors who have continued to shop at her store end up shocked by the hefty tariff at the border, and turn around to return the products, she said.Now, she’s worried about whether she’ll be able to keep her 17 employees on the payroll, since 80% of her business comes from Canadian travelers during the summer, she added.“There’s a lot of people that are saying, ‘Why don’t we just give P...