Northwest Yarns & Mercantile
We are the owners of Northwest Yarns & Mercantile. We are Americans, we are Washingtonians, and we are in Bellingham, a small city with somewhere around 95,000 people that is a little over 20 miles from the USA/Canadian border. And we are members of one of the many communities that live on the shores of the Salish Sea, a body of water that surrounds parts of both Washington, USA and British Columbia, Canada.
With the conclusion of the Pig War in 1859 (pity the poor pig) and the Treaty of Washington in 1871, we have enjoyed peace and friendship between our two countries ever since. There have been occasional trade wars in the past between Canada and the USA; even the best of friends have disagreements and the occasional argument. But nothing like what is going on now. Our current president has engaged in aggressive rhetoric and has started a trade war, which has had real, damaging consequences for border communities and small businesses like ours as well as broader impacts around the world.
Our Canadian customers are more than just customers. They are our friends and our neighbors. Calling Canada our “51st State” used to be an insult used by xenophobes. Today, it is used by our president – a man in the highest office of our nation and with the most power in the world – to both threaten and insult our Canadian neighbors. I can hardly believe I have to type out the rest of this sentence: Canada has not asked to become a part of the USA, and they have absolutely no interest in becoming a part of the USA. You would think that this was made clear to America after the War of 1812, but here we are again.
This, by itself, should be evidence enough that our president has stepped over a line. Nobody but a very few fringe extremists with questionable intelligence were asking for Canada to become a part of the USA. Our president has stated over and over that he is willing to use economic force so that Canada becomes a part of the USA. Some Canadians coming into the USA are worried that they may get swept up in our president’s abuse of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. They do not know if American citizens will verbally attack them in the same way our president is doing while they are in the USA. When they return home, they must pay ridiculously high tariffs on American goods as a result of this manufactured trade war.
Is it any surprise that Canadian travel to the U.S. has dropped by 22%, with potentially more to come? The threat to annex Canada and the economic hostility of this trade war serve no one but our president’s ego. Our business losses since our president started with this 51st state and tariff nonsense almost exactly mirror the decline in Canadian border crossings. This is not a coincidence. Our president’s policies and actions are destroying small American businesses. It may destroy our small business. It may even end up destroying large American businesses.
So, we ask: what exactly are you doing about this?
We understand there are many urgent issues competing for your attention. We are just one small business. But our president and his administration appear to want to not only dismantle American business, but also the lives and rights of both Americans and people from other nations. We are watching attacks on and erasure of immigrants, people of color, women, trans people and the broader LGBTQ+ community. We are watching attacks on the sovereignty of not only Canada, but also of Greenland. We are watching support of wars that are violently killing not only innocent adults but so, so many children. And, we are watching selective responses to wars where profit determines assistance.
And yet we know that even a small business and owners such as ourselves can sometimes be heard. We are a business that pays taxes and tariffs, that employs and supports our community, that supports other nations’ sovereignty, that supports a diverse society and nation, and that does not support funding wars that oppress rather than free. And so, we ask you again.
What, exactly, are you doing to support small American businesses like us?
What, exactly, are you doing to help pull Americans out of the economic and moral pit created by this administration?
What, exactly, are you doing to defend democracy and equality here and throughout the world?
What, exactly, are you doing?
Most sincerely,
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