‘We Didn’t Even See the Border — Until Now’: How Trump Has Driven Canadians and Americans Apart
NIAGARA FALLS, ONTARIO — The mayor of Niagara Falls in Canada is not American, but he’s so close. Jim Diodati has an almost American accent, American cousins and an American best friend. He grew up watching American TV. A nephew played baseball at the University of Alabama. Diodati’s affinity for all things American was once so strong that he would have voted for Donald Trump
“When he came out with The Art of the Deal in the mid ’80s, I bought it and loved it,” Diodati told me as we sat in his city hall office. “I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’d be an incredible president. We’d finally have a businessman running the country instead of a politician.’”
Now he’s had a rapid change of heart. Ever since Trump was elected in November and the new president began barraging his erstwhile allies with belittling comments about Canada being the “51st state” and then levied punishing tariffs on Canadian imports, Diodati has swung hard against the man he once revered.
Diodati’s new posture toward the U.S. president is evident on the mantelpiece in his office, where Diodati has prominently displayed two hats: “CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE” and a “51” with a line through it. They sit next to some newer décor, cannonballs from the war of 1812 — the last time the United States tried (unsuccessfully) to conquer Canada in an armed conflict.
“I liked him. I was still defending him in the beginning [of his second term],” Diodati said. “It was when he put us in his sights and made us look like the bad guy — more than anything, it was just hurtful … and then the 51st state talk, it went from hurtful to offensive.”
Diodati, 59, is feeling an acutely personal version of the emotions shared by many Canadians. The border was once an afterthought, a barely existing barrier that Canadians and Americans traversed routinely for the most casual of reasons. Now that frontier, which is clearly visible from the roof of city hall, has become all-consuming for the residents of border towns who used to take living, working and playing between the United States and Canada for granted. Many of Diodati’s constituents are furious with their southern neighbor, insisting that they will not travel to the U.S. or even purchase American-made products. Ahead of Canada’s April 28 elections, the nation’s relationship with the United States has become the defining issue of the campaign. The financial implications of the looming trade war are huge and destabilizing for the national economy, but so too are the much harder to quantify emotional costs of estrangement.
“Growing up in a border town, living in a border town, we don’t even see the border,” Diodati said. “Now, it’s more measured. People are thinking twice. Canadians aren’t feeling as welcome coming to the U.S. And it’s a little bit sad, because that’s not how it was or should be.”
Nothing expresses “how it was” more clearly than the Diodati’s friendship with Chris Greco, his longtime pal from Buffalo whom he hasn’t seen since before Trump was elected.
The friendship between Diodati and Greco is old enough that it comes with a Coldplay soundtrack.
They met over 25 years ago. For years, they were two young salesmen bounding onto stage to pitch audiences in hotel conference rooms on the virtues of multi-level marketing as the piano riff from “Viva La Vida” kicked in. “I used to rule the world…”
“He’s just a great guy,” Diodati said about Greco. “Heart of gold. We connected instantly, and we’ve been friends ever since, and it’s been probably 25 years.
Read More Here: Politico
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