Before Matthew Shoemaker became mayor of Sault Ste. Marie — before he could read or ride a bike, even — he knew what formed the bedrock of his hometown: the Algoma Steel factory, and the Michigan town across the river.
Sitting at his desk this month, both weighed heavily on him.
For over a century, Sault Ste. Marie has grown around Algoma Steel. Now, the Trump administration’s tariffs on Canadian steel exports threaten to devastate the local economy and its 80,000 people. And the close bond with the city’s border twin in Michigan has been ruptured as a consequence of the escalating trade war between the two nations. Canadians, who frequently cross the border to live parts of their lives on the other side of the river, are hurt, angry and no longer feel welcome in the United States.
“The tariffs are so specific to our main industry that it feels personal, it feels like the American administration is attacking Sault Ste. Marie,” Mr. Shoemaker, 37, said in an interview this month.
Mr. Shoemaker’s own father worked at Algoma Steel. His mother immigrated from Italy after World War II, sponsored by an uncle who worked at the mill. So did the brothers who came with her, and her sisters’ husbands.
“It is a central entity in the history of so many people’s families here,” Mr. Shoemaker said. “The fact that it has fallen on hard times causes a real emotional reaction.”
More than half of the steel produced in Sault Ste. Marie used to be shipped to the United States, and the 50 percent tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have devastated the company’s finances.
In March, Algoma Steel, one of only three major Canada-based steel producers, abruptly laid off 1,000 workers it had planned to phase out over two or more years through retirements and reassignments.
Mr. Shoemaker believes the real toll could reach 3,000 jobs, once the layoffs’ full impact makes its way through the city’s broader economy. And things are not getting better soon.
Talks between the United States and Canada broke down last month, and hoped-for tariff relief for steel did not materialize.
The Canadian government has supported Algoma Steel through previous downturns — it has gone bust four times in its history — and will direct a steel contract for the construction of icebreakers to the company. But that will not make up for the loss of the U.S. contracts that form the core of its client base.
Twins at Birth
“The Soos” — as Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., are affectionately known — were born as one village on opposite banks of a river, settled by French Jesuit missionaries in 1668. They were later divided as the St. Marys River became the international border between the United States and Canada.
But the twin towns stayed knit together.
An American, Francis Clergue, founded a steel and iron company on the Canadian side in 1901, drawn by a nearby mine and a waterway that could carry the processed metals to the U.S. market.
