Shoemaker and Romano hope for a tariff-free trade relationship with Trump

Local leaders have a couple of months to prepare for Donald Trump's return to the White House. 

Mayor Matthew Shoemaker from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., hopes the relationships he has made across the border will help to avoid a return of protectionist measures by the former president in his first term.

Trump took to the stage at about 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday, after being declared the winner of the 2024 presidential race by numerous news outlets. About the same time, Shoemaker was heading to bed after hours of watching the votes come in on a two-television setup.

"I didn't quite make it to when he started speaking," said Shoemaker. "I knew that if he started it would probably be a half an hour so I thought I don't have it in me."

Shoemaker was a city councillor during Trump's first four-year term as president. He saw first-hand the effect of the president's protectionist measures, including steel tariffs that had a negative effect on the city's largest employer. He said on Wednesday it's too early to tell if those tariffs will return.

"There were talks of tariffs during the campaign, but it's hard to know if those are going to be broadly applied or targeted to certain countries or certain industries," said Shoemaker.

He said a lot of work was done at the municipal level under former mayor Christian Provenzano during the time those tariffs were in effect to reach out to communities and businesses that Algoma Steel — at the time called Essar Steel Algoma — either purchased from or sold to in order to advocate for them to be lifted.

Shoemaker also noted when he was voted into the mayor's seat in 2022, it was after almost two years of the border being closed due to COVID.

"One of the things we needed to do was rebuild the relationship with our neighbours and international allies, and that's what I did," he said.

On Monday, Shoemaker travelled across the International Bridge for a 'beer summit' with Don Gerrie, mayor of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

"As we work to rebuild that relationship, it's a continual process," Shoemaker said.

"We're going to potentially need those close allies to be our advocates with their government in Washington if there are policy decisions that have a negative impact on us and on Sault, Michigan."

Sault MPP Ross Romano says he didn't stay up nearly as late to watch the election results on Tuesday evening.

"I watched for a brief period. I had a rather late night at the office, crashed a little early and woke up to the news," said Romano. 

He said first and foremost he wants to congratulate president-elect Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance.

"I'm hoping that we have a good working relationships moving forward and that the United States recognizes the incredible contribution from Ontario to the overall economy — both ours and theirs," Romano said.

At the time the steel tariffs were put in place by Trump, Romano was an opposition MPP who warned the Liberal government of the time against applying retaliatory tariffs against the U.S.

"I know I got quite frustrated at the time while I was serving in that one year of opposition. Kathleen Wynne was still premier in Ontario, and there were some retaliatory tariffs that were taken by the province of Ontario against the state of New York," Romano said.

"After a while those steel tariffs were removed and the trade relation continued and I hope that is what we are going to have happen on a go forward basis with this administration from this point forward."

Sault MP Terry Sheehan did not return calls for comment for this story before it was published.