‘We Didn’t Even See the Border — Until Now’: How Trump Has Driven Canadians and Americans Apart

Trump’s punishing tariffs have big implications for the upcoming Canadian election. It’s affecting personal relationships between the two countries, too.

Jim Diodati stands for a portrait in front of Niagara Falls artwork and various decor items.
Niagara Falls, Ontario Mayor Jim Diodati stands for a portrait in his office in City Hall, on April 9, 2025. | Photos by Calder McHugh/POLITICONIAGARA 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.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.”“You could ask him for anything, and he’d be there, no questions asked. And he wouldn’t ask for anything in return,” Greco said about Diodati. “He’s like a brother to me.”

They live less than an hour from each other. Two of their daughters, now in their 20s, were born just weeks apart. Whenever one of them hears the chords to “Viva La Vida,” at a wedding or at a supermarket, they record and send a snippet to one another.During their time working together, the two won trips to the Bahamas and Hawaii (where they filmed a national corporate video — with a Coldplay soundtrack, naturally). They did this for five years before pursuing other careers. Diodati went into politics, and Greco real estate. Their days of jet-setting were replaced by family barbecues and long dinners in both Canada and the U.S.

Greco would regularly drive the hour north to share a meal with Diodati. “I’ll shoot up there and we’ll go to a restaurant, and of course it’s the best table, no one lets us pay,” Greco told me.Diodati and Greco haven’t had a big get-together since a cookout at the Greco’s last summer. They don’t talk as frequently as they used to. And when they do, they don’t bring up Trump or politics very much. They each insist that they won’t let tensions between their two countries separate them; avoiding the topic has worked so far. But they’re thoroughly aware of the toll that politics has taken in other people’s lives.