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Stefano Tijerina is a senior lecturer at the University of Maine’s Maine Business School. He is a member of the Maine chapter of the national Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent the views of the University of Maine or the Scholars Strategy Network.
In a recent interview with the Canadian Broadcast Corp., Don Drummond, former chief economist for TD Bank, said that “if you want to stop a bully you have to be prepared to get your nose bloodied.” Vice President JD Vance responded, during his latest visit to Maine, that Canada needed to “stop taking advantage of the people of America.”
Neighbors talking trash about each other seems to be a clear sign of a dark period in U.S.-Canadian relations. Will these leaders really sever the ties that have united the two nations for close to 160 years? Media, politicians, and disgruntled citizens across the border say “yes,” but history shows that grassroot resilience on the ground across the 5,525-mile border has, time and time again, helped keep the relationship alive.
Trade, economic relations and the free movement of people across this borderland region has been the norm since the First Nations settled this part of the world thousands of years ago. A reality that remained intact under French and British colonial rule, and after the American Revolution, with the signing of a Reciprocity Agreement between Britain and the United States in 1854 that would last until the early stages of the American Civil War. In 1867, Canadian Confederation paved the way for Canada’s independence, and even then, trade with the U.S. was an integral part of its nation-building strategy, while maintaining strong ties with Britain.
Canada’s loyalty to Britain during the first half of the 20th century would simmer the relationship with the U.S., but even then contraband and informal trade maintained the borderland relationship alive. A relationship that would strengthen after World War II, culminating with the signing of the Auto pact in the 1960s, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in the 1980s, and culminating with the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994.
During all this time, the borderland region remained a contested region because of its abundance of resources, and the reason behind the most recent dispute between the United States and Canada. It isn’t the first time these countries have sparred over trade relations.
In the late 1960s, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau executed his “Third Option” foreign policy and economic development strategy, which temporarily steered Canada away from its pathway toward further integration into the U.S. market. But the nationalist effort was short lived, as Canada turned toward free market policies and further integration into the U.S. market in the 1980s, guided by Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, whose government laid the foundations for NAFTA.
Throughout most of the second half of the 20th century, Canada refused to join the Organization of American States, a multilateral agreement that began in 1948 designed to foster economic, social and political cooperation among nations in the Western Hemisphere, opting instead to advance British interests in the region. It only joined in 1990, as its economy incrementally aligned with the U.S. economy. From that moment onward, the interconnectivity between the two economies became almost irreversible, mostly due to public and private-sector will on both sides of the border, which pushed for greater market integration.
U.S.-Canadian economic relations have a much longer and rockier history than most observers realize. This relationship is deeply strained at the moment, but the history of the bilateral relationship will almost certainly continue beyond our time. The borderland region remains an epicenter of trade, whether regulated or unregulated, formal or informal, under tariffs or free trade. Local communities and trade will remain the linchpin between the intertwined nations, as history has shown. In the good times and in the bad times, the borderland region has remained a constant.
The politicians will come and go, but the people on the ground will remain, one generation after another. It is at the local level, at the grassroot level, that the borderland thrives and not in the pen of decisionmakers.