Blue-collar work and cross-border blues Tariffs would have a direct impact on N.D. bus manufacturing plant By: Conrad Sweatman Posted: 6:41 PM CST Friday, Feb. 7, 2025

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/02/2025 (220 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PEMBINA, N.D. — A vein of free trade has long run through the heart of this little community just south of the Canada-U.S. border.

Well before it was formally established in 1843 at the confluence of the Pembina and Red rivers, the area was already playing a transactional role in international affairs.

Explorers and traders, travelling downstream on the Red in the 1700s, would pass through as they headed north to establish fur trading posts in what was then the vast territory of Rupert’s Land.

A century later, ox-powered Red River carts would rumble by carrying goods north and south. Many of Pembina’s first permanent settlers were from Canada or involved in Canadian-American trade operations.

So when trade winds blow, as they are today with President Donald Trump’s tough tariff talk and the threat of a Canada-U.S. economic showdown, Pembina residents feel it.

“I think it’s just Trump blowing smoke,” says Mike Fitzgerald, the mayor of Pembina, the oldest colonial settlement in the Dakotas.

“He likes to huff and puff. I understand where he’s coming from, but it’s just to get the ball moving.”

North Dakota’s political blood runs red.

Manitoba’s neighbouring state directly to the south has voted for a Republican candidate in every presidential election since 1964, and its demographics — 87 per cent white, below average college education, largely rural — seemingly make it a prime candidate for Trump’s so-called economic nationalism.

But Trump’s agenda, with the looming possibility of 25 per cent tariffs on imports from Canada, isn’t just a challenge to Canadians: it could pose as a heavy burden for American municipalities and states, like North Dakota, whose economies are enmeshed with ours.

And in some ways, Winnipeg is to this border town of 500 and surrounding area, what America is to Canada: a much larger trading partner, making tariffs potentially very disruptive to its economy.

Although security at the Pembina-Emerson crossing has intensified since 9/11, the international boundary still feels fluid in other ways. Local hunters tell stories of sneaking across the 49th parallel to retrieve wounded prey wandering north — and facing nothing more than a finger-wagging from friends working in border security.

Vehicles with Manitoba licence plates move along the town’s streets all day, some going to and from Pembina’s main economic engine — Motor Coach Industries’ sizeable facility. The bus manufacturing plant is owned by the NFI (New Flyer Industries) Group, a Canadian multinational headquartered in Winnipeg.

As of May 2022, the location employed about 200 people, with many living and driving in from the surrounding area, according to Fitzgerald. That year, word came that the Pembina plant would soon close as a cost-saving and efficiency measure.

Nearly three years later — after lengthy negotiations and an intervention from Republican Senator John Hoeven — the plant is still operational, with a greater focus on battery-electric coaches.

But just as MCI workers were catching their breath, they are now bracing for how NFI Group may deal with new pressures wrought by trade tensions between the two countries.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen, or when, if, how. I’m just trying not to worry, until I have to,” says one employee who asked not to be identified. “I just hope (Trump and Trudeau) both agree not to do something crazy.”

Mayor Fitzgerald calls the tariffs a double-edged sword that could “make life miserable but also… make money.” He acknowledges a lingering bitterness directed at MCI and wonders if American protectionist measures might “put them in their place.”

“They’ve burnt the bridge with a lot of individuals in the past,” he says, referring to the company under past management. (MCI has moved between several hands before being acquired by New Flyer Industries in 2015.)

“Doing the opening and closing and opening and closing thing and laying people off.”

“You don’t know what’s going to happen, or when, if, how. I’m just trying not to worry, until I have to.”–MCI Employee

These kind of remarks are a reminder that growing American resistance to free trade isn’t just about the perceived threat of foreign workers. It’s also about foreign capital and big international business, too.

“(Free-trade agreements) gave corporations a lot of power to challenge governments when it came to environmental standards and labour regulations,” says University of Manitoba economist Jesse Hajer, who also teaches in the Labour Studies department.

“And that played an important role in the loss of manufacturing jobs both in Canada and the United States… You could argue that led to the rise of this right-wing populist push right now with a lot of people angry about not having those jobs.”

It remains to be seen whether Trump’s tariffs — ostensibly about both stimulating America’s struggling manufacturing sector and punishing Canada for its laxness on illicit border activity — will have their intended effect. Tariffs, as with other forms of protectionism, can trigger capital flight, as investors start looking abroad for cheaper and less volatile markets.

Not everyone who lives in or near Pembina is particularly worried tariffs would hurt their economy in this way.

“I believe (Canadians) have been taking advantage. Not only Canadians, other countries too, for a very long time… This guy (Trump) is changing things,” says one area resident sitting with a group of farmers at the Bridgestone Bar & Grill.

Between the more pointed talk, they joke around, providing this reporter with fake names. Noon hits and beers are ordered, while a police reality TV show plays on the screen above the bar.

“I believe (NFI Group) needs Pembina. I don’t think Winnipeg can handle everything,” one of them says.

Auto manufacturing in North America has become increasingly international over the past 50 years, a process driven by globalization, evolving supply chains and trade agreements. A single vehicle may have parts sourced from Europe, Asia and all three North American countries — and these parts often go on their own globetrotting journey.

A recent Globe and Mail article illustrated the migration of a crankshaft, the metal backbone of combustion engines found in buses and other vehicles, along the North American supply chain.

A crankshaft might travel between Canada and the U.S. six times after being cast in Mexico — re-finished in Canada, assembled in the States, and so on — before it reaches a consumer. With every border crossing it faces a potential U.S. tariff or Canadian counter-tariff.

NFI Group declined to comment on the potential impact of tariffs on its operations, but the issue is likely just as hotly discussed around the boardroom table as it is around small-town barroom tables.

The company with 50 facilities across nine countries — and at least six manufacturing facilities in the U.S. — is represented on Manitoba’s new 16-person U.S. Trade Council, assembled in preparation for American tariffs. The council includes representatives from other prominent businesses, government and multiple labour organizations.

Across the border, the GOP — broadly considered “the party of free trade”— has latched onto protectionist language that helped turn blue-collar midwestern states red in Trump’s 2016 and 2024 victories.

North Dakota has been a GOP stronghold long before Trump came on the scene, but spend some time in the Pembina region, where farming and manufacturing are central to the economy, and it’s not long before you hear protests of dissent against the president and his economics.

“I don’t know what we’re punishing (Canadians) for,” says Jeff Blanchard, a employee at the Pembina State Museum on the edge of town. “I’m not sure what you did.”

A sentinel-like observation tower rises from the museum with a sightline that extends well beyond the border crossing. On the main floor, the exhibitions describe the histories of the fur trade and of the Ojibwa, Dakota, Assiniboine and Cree in the region.

The Red River figures prominently in these narratives, whose outlines with be familiar to many visitors from Manitoba. One panel describes the Metis as “free traders, crossing back and forth between the two countries with little regard for border formalities.”

“I think the tariffs are stupid,” Blanchard continues.

“Why would want to start a trade war with Canada?… (People say) lumber is way too expensive… I think we import about 80 per cent of soft lumber from Canada. And you think slapping a tariff on that’s going to make the price go down?

“So, you want to bring manufacturing back. Well, (tariffs are) one way you can do it. But if the infrastructure is not there… how long is it going to be before I break ground on my factory?”

Although Trump paused levying 25 per cent tariffs on Canada and Mexico earlier this week, the sense of punishment remains palpable among Canadians.

In a country where, in recent years, energetic displays of the maple leaf were considered almost taboo, Canada’s show of nationalism has been unusually swift and loud.

The U.S. national anthem is still being booed at NHL games and “Buy Canadian Instead” signs are popping up at stores across the country with some consumers boycotting American products.

“Relationships are based on trust and predictability”

Federal politicians from across the spectrum — from NDP’s Jagmeet Singh to the Conservatives’ Pierre Poilievre — are outlining plans to increase Canada’s self-sufficiency and internal trade, or strengthen ties with non-U.S. foreign trade partners.

And many Canadians appear to be imagining a future where the country’s status as America’s closest ally is no longer a given.

“I think Mexico and Canada are definitely re-evaluating their relationship with United States,” says Mark Jendrysik, a political scientist at the University of North Dakota.

“It’s a major shift because relationships are based on trust and predictability, and you have someone like Donald Trump who is, by definition, unpredictable and untrustworthy. So, I think that that has changed the whole equation of the relationship.”

Blanchard cautions GOP-supporting North Dakotans against tribalism and calls tariff support a “naive effect” of the hold Trumpian nationalism has on the area.

Yet North Dakota is a region where borders and identifications are still somewhat fluid. The culture isn’t just American: it’s agrarian, blue-collar, prairie — in other words, a lot like Manitoba. The Pembina area’s broadly conservative residents are just as eager to talk about pastimes like hunting, going to the lake and snowmobiling.

Though lately, an uneasiness colours their conversations.

conrad.sweatman@freepress.mb.ca

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Conrad Sweatman
Reporter

Conrad Sweatman is an arts reporter and feature writer. Before joining the Free Press full-time in 2024, he worked in the U.K. and Canadian cultural sectors, freelanced for outlets including The Walrus, VICE and Prairie Fire. Read more about Conrad.