A Canadian flag has been raised for the first time at the Municipal Office Centre in Port Huron, Michigan.
City Manager and Chief Administrative Officer James Freed spoke with Sarnia News Today after he hoisted the flag up the pole at city hall on Wednesday.
Freed called it a visible "gesture of support" for their Canadian partners.
"The Port Huron economy is economically interdependent with the City of Sarnia," Freed said. "We rely on the Canadian workers and Canadian shoppers in Port Huron. So, it was a simple gesture. Something we could do to show our Canadian friends that we support them and that they're welcome here."
Freed said "there's a lot of national rhetoric on both sides of the [St. Clair] river right now."
"At the end of the day, we've always been friends with our Canadian partners. We rely on them and we want them to know we're thinking about them and they're welcome here," Freed said.
He described the decline in Canadian shoppers in downtown Port Huron as "dramatic".
"We rely on not only the Canadian shopper, but also the Canadian worker. A significant amount of our healthcare workforce comes from Sarnia every single day to help take care of patients, and so we are interdependent in every way and we want our Canadian friends to know that we care," Freed said.
Freed said residents in Port Huron and Sarnia are stuck in the middle as the ongoing tariff dispute drags on.
"I feel like our parents are fighting and there's nothing the kids can do," he said. "It's a simple gesture to let our Canadian partners know that we're thinking about them, and that they're welcome here, and we rose their flag in solidarity."
Trade negotiations with the United States have been described by Canadian officials as "complex."
When a viable trade deal was not reached by an August 1 deadline, the federal minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, Dominic LeBlanc, said Canada won't accept a bad deal from U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.
Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order boosting tariffs from 25 per cent to 35 per cent on Canadian goods that don't comply with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).
A 25 per cent levy was previously imposed on the non-U.S. portion of assembled vehicles and a 50 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from all countries.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said 312,120 travellers crossed the Blue Water Bridge into Port Huron in July. While that was up from 270,310 in June, it represented a decrease from 352,409 travellers in July of 2024.