POINT ROBERTS — On a gray Wednesday in mid-March, only a few cars sat in the International Marketplace parking lot. Inside, the cavernous grocery store was mostly empty save for employees and a few patrons.
Why does a large grocery store operate in a Whatcom County community so small it does not meet the 1,500 population threshold to incorporate as a town?
For a clue, open the tills. Beneath the drawer holding American currency is another drawer, this one bearing colorful Canadian bills.
Point Roberts isn’t an island, but in some ways, it resembles one. The 5-square-mile American exclave is surrounded on three sides by water — its fourth side, a border with Canada.
The point’s unusual situation leaves it uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of an escalating trade war between the U.S. and Canada. Local businesses rely on Canadian tourism, which swells in the summertime. Nearly 40% of the exclave’s 1,275 residents are foreign-born, according to census estimates, and many have dual citizenship with Canada.
“We’re about as Canadian as an American town can be,” said Wayne Lyle, a local realtor and president of the Point Roberts Chamber of Commerce.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, residents endured a 19-month-long border closure. An emergency foot ferry service offered rides to Bellingham twice weekly for much of that period. Traffic has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. Data compiled by Western Washington University’s Border Policy Research Institute shows a 32% decline in vehicle passengers crossing into Point Roberts between 2019 and 2023.
Now, relations between the U.S. and Canada have plunged. President Donald Trump has stoked tensions in recent months with repeated taunts about Canada becoming “the 51st state.” Last month, Trump announced a 25% tariff on foreign steel and aluminum. The move prompted retaliatory tariffs from Canada, the biggest importer of those products to the U.S. last year, according to CNN.
Early this month, Trump imposed a 25% levy on all Canadian and Mexican goods before walking those tariffs back for many products within days. In response, Canada imposed a 25% tax on a range of American goods including poultry, beer and apparel. The tariffs “will remain in place until the U.S. eliminates its tariffs against Canadian goods,” according to a Canadian government website.
Trump is set to impose additional tariffs on April 2.
A movement to buy Canadian-made products has taken hold in Canada amid the turmoil with its closest neighbor.
“Canadians are angry,” Lyle said simply.
And if there’s a movement to boycott American products, he said, “people in Bellingham will feel it, but not like us.”
Some local business owners are already noticing fewer visitors. The abrupt changes in trade relations have left them in limbo.
“You wake up every day not knowing if it’s a tariff day or not,” said Neil King, who owns local specialty store Kora’s Corner and its accompanying Rubber Duck Museum with his wife, Krystal.
This month, at least four of the store’s vendors told the owners they would be raising prices due to tariffs. The hikes range from 10% to 20%, King said. The store’s prices are already artificially low to keep products affordable for Canadians.
The couple opened the store in 2022 after a move to Point Roberts from Portland, Oregon, the previous year. At the time, the border was open and visitors were starting to come back, King said. Business grew year after year.
After Trump’s “51st state” comment, things took a turn. February was “pretty much one of the worst months we’ve ever seen,” King said. Last year, the store totaled about 120 transactions for the month. This year, it didn’t crack 30.
One day, the store made just about $6.
Canadians called and emailed the Kings directly to tell them they would not be visiting Point Roberts due to the trade war. Most were kind and empathetic to the point’s difficult position. Nevertheless, some had follow-up questions.
“How many people in Point Roberts voted for Trump?” one person asked, echoing others.
Ali Hayton, owner of International Marketplace, is facing a grim reality, too. The grocery store has been in her family since 1998.
In the best of times, Point Roberts can be a challenging place to run a store. Hayton pays hefty delivery fees — more than $2,000 a week, she said — to transport goods through two border crossings. Without local vendors to buy from, she has to buy most products through one wholesaler. And when the value of the Canadian dollar drops, business slows down.
At the beginning of the year, the store was still down 20% from pre-pandemic business, Hayton said. Since January, it’s dropped even further: 40% lower than it was before lockdown. She’s having to charge more to cover the price of the groceries she’s forced to throw away because no one’s buying them.
This month, two or three different customers returned their groceries to the store after they were asked to pay a 25% tax on the goods at the border.
Hayton understands Canadians’ frustration with the U.S. administration.
“Every time [Trump] calls Trudeau ‘the governor’ I just want to just spit nails,” she said. “It’s just completely disrespectful.”
But it stings to have people think Point Roberts residents can control what happens in the country’s national government, she said.
A short drive away, the Saltwater Cafe has been “absolutely dead” many days, said Tamra Hansen, who owns the cafe and the nearby Pier Restaurant.
Typically, Canadians make up about 90% of Hansen’s clientele. Some loyal customers have visited to support the cafe in recent months, she said, though at least one told her they wouldn’t be telling their neighbors in Canada they did so. She doesn’t blame them.
In February, she was down 55% from previous years.
Hayton, at the grocery store, worries about her employees more than herself. She could walk away and be “fine,” she said. But she carries the weight of keeping her workers employed.
“I’m not a panicky person,” she said. “I’m usually very positive, very proactive, but quite frankly I’m just exhausted over the whole thing.”
She’s not the only one feeling the strain. Nick Kiniski is making do with just one bartender and one cook at his restaurant, Reef, as business is slow. Like Hansen, he said about 90% of his business is Canadian.
After 36 years, recent developments have driven Kiniski to want to sell the business.
“I haven’t felt this rough in years, just stress,” he said. “It could bankrupt me.”
Spring and summer will be the real test of the trade war’s impact on Point Roberts businesses. Many nearby school districts time their spring break for the last two weeks of March.
One possible driver of traffic: the Bald Eagle Golf Club on the point, which has tentatively set a reopening date for April after a multi-year closure. Tracy Evans, the course’s general manager, is staying optimistic. Still, she already sees the impact of the trade war on the community. Tariffs, she said, are “like a slap in the face” after COVID-era hardships.
Hansen, whose cafe is decked out in American and Canadian flags, is waiting to see how things unfold. A chalkboard hung up on Saltwater’s wall reads, “Point Roberts residents support Canada” alongside a drawing of a Canadian flag and a heart.
“We’re just day by day hoping that things will resolve themselves and our two governments can come together and work out some agreement as quickly as possible,” she said, “because we can’t afford a delay like we had during the pandemic.”
Sophia Gates covers rural Whatcom and Skagit counties. She is a Washington State Murrow Fellow whose work is underwritten by taxpayers and available outside CDN's paywall. Reach her at sophiagates@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 131.
