MADAWASKA — An outsider might say Kim Thibodeau lives in two different worlds.

She was born in Fort Kent, a small Aroostook County town separated from Canada by the St. John River, a border station and an invisible line drawn by politicians of times past. About 30 years ago, she followed her boyfriend across that river to New Brunswick and settled in the Canadian city of Edmundston. Now, she returns to her birth country each morning to work at Larry’s One Stop, a Madawaska gas station that sells Canadian gas on American soil, mostly to Canadians.

Two sets of laws, two sets of prices, two sets of income taxes — the reality of life on the border. For many who live in towns like Madawaska, the result isn’t two distinct worlds but one community.

External forces are threatening to pull that world apart.

“Yesterday was just a rough day,” Thibodeau said last week shortly after President Donald Trump’s last-minute decision to delay implementing his promised tariffs on all Canadian goods for 30 days.

The decision drew a sigh of relief from staff at Larry’s One Stop. The tariffs could have forced the gas station to raise its prices significantly, killing its competitive advantage and driving away bargain-hunting Canadians who make up 90% of its business.

“Everybody was like, phew,” she said. “For now.”

Economists have warned that the impacts of Trump’s threatened tariffs would reverberate through the American and global economies in ways big and small. Maine’s border towns, whose fortunes are closely tied to sister communities in Canada, will feel the effects acutely.

“People’s livelihood is in the balance,” said Patrick Lacroix, a historian at the University of Maine-Fort Kent.

In about two dozen interviews conducted over two days last week, residents of Madawaska and Edmundston spoke about the growing tension between the two countries, the simmering anxiety about what Trump’s tariffs might mean for the local economy — and why some of them are supporting the president’s tactics anyway.

LIFE IN MADAWASKA

The border is thin in Madawaska, where many residents identify as Acadian, an ethnic group descended from French colonial settlers. Many speak English and French interchangeably and have dual citizenship, living on one side of the border and working on the other. It’s not uncommon to cross the border several times a day to visit family, buy groceries or go out to eat.

The town, like many in rural Maine, has declined in the last 50 years. Its population has decreased by 30%, to less than 4,000 residents, as manufacturing and mill jobs have moved away. The bars, restaurants and dance halls that once dotted Main Street have shuttered. American Legion Post 147 is the only bar in town open seven days a week.

Beneath dim lights and the haze of indoor cigarette smoke, a group of about a dozen regulars sat at the Legion’s bar Tuesday night. While the impending trade war lingers in the back of many residents’ minds, Legion members say they try not to talk politics. Too many friendships have been split apart in recent years over political disagreements.

“I’ve lived here all my life, and I have never experienced this kind of nervousness about our future,” Barb Morin said, sipping a Michelob Ultra. “We’ve got to take what comes our way and learn to deal with it, I guess.”

That spirit has defined Madawaska for as long as it has existed, though many say it’s gotten stronger in recent years as the town has seen shifts in its economic and political makeup. A shrinking and aging population has changed life in Madawaska but also has emboldened its already tight-knit community.

The town, and its sister city Edmundston across the river, maintain a strong sense of kinship that transcends the international border between the two. As Denise Duperré, administrative specialist at Madawaska’s town office, put it: “We’re Can-Ams more than anything.”

“Everybody says we’re at the end of the world, but I think we’re really at the start of it,” Duperré said. “This town reinvents itself. It has to.”

Where Madawaska’s economy once relied on potato farms and paper mills, it now leans on winter recreation and summer tourism. Where union millworkers once hopped from bar to bar, they now drink together at the American Legion.

While the towns maintain a distinct identity, cracks have formed within the community. Many Canadians feel a sense of unease about their American counterparts as a trade war looms. Many Americans remain bitter about how their Maine neighbors voted after a heated presidential election. And uncertainty about how the tariffs could affect the region lingers on both sides of the border.

Rachel Bouvier, an economist at the University of Southern Maine, said tariffs between the U.S. and Canada have existed before, but the looming 25% import tax represents a “different magnitude.”

Even if the tariffs end up being strictly a negotiating tactic, Bouvier said they could still be damaging.

“Businesses have to be forward-looking when making decisions about where to source things, about their supply chain,” she said.

Further, Bouvier said, a trade war could erode a trust between the U.S. and Canada that has strengthened over decades.

Locals, however, believe the bond is strong.

“I’m not fearful, no matter what happens. That’s our family over there,” said Jessica Savoie, Legion bartender, while pouring a White Russian. “We take care of each other out here.”

POLITICS AT TIM’S

Madawaska’s politics have shifted drastically in the last two decades. On most mornings, the town’s political divide runs right through the local Tim Horton’s.

A group of four retired millworkers and lifelong Democrats huddled around a table on Wednesday morning, drinking black coffee, snacking on “Timbits” doughnut holes and discussing the news of the day: tariffs. The men at the table believe that the tariffs pose an existential threat to both Madawaska and Edmundston.

Bert LaChance says that tariffs won’t just make everyday goods more expensive on both sides of the border, but may also cost the town’s millworkers their jobs. Much of the lumber processed at the Madawaska mill comes from Canada before being sold in the U.S.

“What do you think is going to happen? The Canadian dollar is going to get weaker, and that hurts all of us here,” LaChance said. “It’s stupid and it’s sad. I’d hate to see people suffer because of someone’s stupid comments.”

The men lamented Madawaska’s steady rightward political shift over the last two decades, which they say has done something long considered unthinkable in Madawaska: Created an actual divide between residents of the border community.

In the 2008 presidential election, more than 75% of Madawaska voters cast their ballots for Barack Obama, a Democrat. Last November, Donald Trump received just over 50% of Madawaska’s vote, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to carry the town in decades.

“We used to be a strong union town. Everyone was Catholic and Democrats,” LaChance said. “We used to sit down and get coffee with these people. Now there’s a big anger. I don’t talk to some of my old friends, to some of my family. You just can’t.”

After about 45 minutes, LaChance had the opportunity to show what he meant.

“Oh (expletive), here come the Trumpers,” he said as Vincent Morneault and Bob Campagna, also retired millworkers, opened the door to the lobby. “Guess it’s time to go.”

The two groups shook hands and laughed, joking with the Tim Horton’s cashier that it was the daily “changing of the guard.”

“Good riddance, I say,” Campagna laughed. “They’re good guys, but they’re not the brightest. I speak my mind, but I’m not gonna change and they’re not gonna change. The only one who changes minds is the Lord.”

Morneault and Campagna typify the changes Madawaska’s population has seen in the last 30 years: Both are former union workers who became disillusioned with both their Catholic faith and Democratic politics. They have voted for Republican candidates in each of the last five presidential elections and arrived at Tim Horton’s after their morning prayer meeting at a local Baptist church.

“My father had 13 kids. We all lived and worked on the farm. We were born and raised Democrats because back then, in the ’40s and ’50s, the Democrats were the working man’s party,” Morneault said. “When I told my dad I’d turned Republican, he called me a turncoat. A traitor.”

Both Morneault and Campagna say their politics are informed by their religion. The bulk of their support for Trump comes from his opposition to abortion, and much of their disdain for Democrats comes from their support for LGBTQ+ rights.

Like LaChance, they both acknowledge that tariffs on Canadian goods would likely hurt the local economy. But they also believe they’re a necessary bargaining chip to bring manufacturing jobs to the United States and force Canada to enforce stricter border policies.

“We’ve been good neighbors, but they haven’t paid their fair share,” Campagna said. “They need our products, and we need theirs, but not as much.”

LIFE ACROSS THE BORDER

At the national level, the American economy is too mighty for Canadian leaders to take lightly.

But at points along the border, the balance of economic power is reversed.

With a population of about 22,000, greater Edmundston is a bustling metropolis compared with Madawaska. It has a casino and a mall with a food court. It has a McDonald’s. While most residents on the Maine side regularly cross the border to shop, dance or try a new restaurant, several Canadians told reporters that they rarely go into Madawaska at all.

Unless you have family to visit or you’re so frugal that it’s worth crossing over for cheaper American gas or groceries or furniture (people on both sides of the border talked about how much Canadians love the Madawaska Marden’s), what is there to do that you couldn’t do here?

Still, several residents north of the border said it is frustrating that politicians whom they never had the opportunity to vote for or against are making decisions that could drive up their grocery bills.

“We have no control of that, because it’s not our country,” Daisy Bergeron said while out to breakfast on Wednesday morning.

“But the impact is going to be for everybody,” added her husband, Philippe Rouette.

Thibodeau, the office assistant from Larry’s One Stop who lives in Edmundston, said she’s seen friends from Canada share social media posts promoting a boycott of American products. Already, she said, there seemed to be fewer people stopping into Larry’s to buy gas or to exchange currency, even though the tariffs had been delayed.

“A lot of people are not even crossing because of all this,” she said. “They’re all pissed off.”

That anger wasn’t clearly on display across the border, but Edmundston’s mayor, Eric Marquis, said he worries that the threat of a trade war could strain the bonds that have long held the border communities together.

“Unfortunately, I do think we’ll see some problems moving forward,” he said. “Some people are taking this personal, and I think people might have a harder time speaking to each other on the other side.”

In the meantime, Marquis is advising locals to “plan for the worst.”

“We are hearing from a lot of people on (the American side), ‘Hey don’t forget us,’” he said. “But at the end of the day, we have to look for alternatives if these tariffs restart.”

SUPPORT FOR TARIFFS, BUT QUALIFIED

Though mills have now been struggling and closing their doors for generations, the Twin Rivers Paper Co. continues to employ hundreds of workers on both sides of the border.

That success, according to Mike Beaulieu, who has worked at the mill in Madawaska for 35 years, relies on a unique business structure. One facility in Edmundston produces pulp, electricity and steam that get piped across the river to another plant in Madawaska, which turns the raw material into commercial paper products. Beaulieu said the arrangement leverages the exchange rate between American and Canadian dollars to bring in a profit that keeps the mill running strong even while other competitors have failed.

Nobody’s sure exactly what tariffs might mean for the cross-border business, he said. And that has some people worried. If the pulp from the Edmundston plant is excluded because it’s an unfinished product, the tariff might have a minimal effect. If not …

“It could be bad,” Beaulieu said.

Roger Albert, who in November became the first Republican in more than a century to win the legislative district that includes Madawaska, said even those who view Trump’s methods with skepticism are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if results follow.

The only thing he wished Trump would stop talking about is trying to make Canada the 51st state.

“I think people across the border are a little upset about that,” Albert said.

Judy Paradis, a Democrat who represented Madawaska in the Legislature for years, does not share Albert’s view of the situation.

“Canada has been so good to us — they don’t deserve this,” she said. “I don’t think people understand how completely tied at the hip we are.”

Paradis has been shopping in Canada for years. She sees the most savings on prescription drugs, which matters to her a great deal now that she’s in her 80s.

Like Thibodeau from Larry’s One Stop, Beaulieu embodies what it means to live on the border.

Half of his coworkers at the mill are Canadian. So is his wife, Lucy, who drives into Canada to work as a nurse in Grand Falls, about 40 miles from the couple’s home in Madawaska. Because she gets paid in Canadian dollars, they do most of their shopping and dining there. Overall, they cross the border two or three times a day.

Beaulieu recognizes that tariffs could cost him, either by sparking a trade war or by hurting the mill, so he hopes that they don’t come to fruition. If the conflict results in a weaker Canadian dollar, his wife might have to consider quitting her job and finding work on the American side.

But he’s glad Trump is pushing for them. In his mind, they’re a negotiation tactic — one that’s long overdue.

“I personally like that he’s stirring the pot and making stuff happen,” he said. “The tariffs might last for just a little bit. But he might settle some stuff.”

Beaulieu and several others on the Maine side of the border pointed to differences in American and Canadian tax laws as fundamentally unfair. When an American crosses the border to shop and returns the same day, they can bring $200 worth of goods back before paying any customs tax. Shoppers moving in the opposite direction pay customs tax on everything they buy in the United States.

The result, Beaulieu said, is that Americans are encouraged to support Canadian businesses while the Canadian government discourages its citizens from returning the favor and spending money south of the border.

If the threat of tariffs pushes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration to level the playing field, Beaulieu said it will be worth it.

He just hopes that the sides work out a way to come together before they split further apart.

Staff Writer Eric Russell contributed to this story.

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