BLAINE, Wash. — A Canadian small business owner is sounding the alarm over the cost of doing business across the border amid trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada.
Suzanne Smith, owner of Betty Be Good Boutique, says she weathered the pandemic and other difficulties, but recent tensions between the two countries were the final nail in the coffin. After 14 years in business, she was forced to close the last of her U.S. shops earlier this year, shutting down all three of her stores.
“It’s a really sad thing to see a dream of yours die due to really no fault of your own,” Smith said. “I did everything I could to pivot and survive this, and here we are.”
“To be honest, I’ve never been more affected by the news as a small business owner,” she added. “So eventually with my business, the way it was, it was just falling behind every month.”
Smith says she began seeing the impacts last year, when wholesale prices skyrocketed due to tariffs. As tensions continued to rise, traffic to her stores dropped noticeably, and the slowdowns stretched from weeks to months.
“My American customers were dealing with the cost increases, but the Canadians who have money to spend wouldn’t even cross the border to come and shop,” Smith said.
On top of that, Smith says she recently lost her NEXUS privileges, which fast-track travelers through border crossings.
She says it happened after she didn’t realize she had to pay a small fee while headed to pick up goods in the U.S., making it even harder to do business here.
“I made a mistake, and normally I’m told that would come with a warning,” Smith said. “And now I’m completely stripped of trusted traveler privileges, and it just felt like a sucker punch on the way out the door.”
Smith’s experience isn’t unique. Len Saunders, an immigration attorney who has practiced in Blaine for 25 years, says he’s seeing clients run into similar problems at the border. He’s warning others to be cautious when traveling across with products.
“Their job is to protect the United States from criminals, from terrorists, from bad people,” Saunders said. “Them catching people going out of the U.S. after they’ve made the legal entry and trying to enforce this obscure customs law, what a complete waste of time.”
“It’s unfortunate that you get people who think that they were doing the right thing,” he added. “This is a word of caution to Canadians or other people in the lower mainland of Vancouver who are coming to Whatcom County to pick up products to make sure that they declare that they need to go inside the border and pay this ridiculous fee.”
Smith says she plans to appeal to try to get her NEXUS privileges back, but she’s been told it’s extremely difficult.