Amina Gilani quit her full-time insurance job in 2019 when the restaurant software company she co-founded in Canada, Sociavore, was accepted into a Chicago accelerator program for food industry startups.
At the time, Sociavore, which is based in Ontario, had a staff of two people. Today it has about a dozen employees, and Gilani doesn’t consider it a startup anymore.
“If I look at the timeline of the company and what’s happened since then, that opportunity was really important to us,” Gilani said about Food Foundry’s accelerator program, which connects its startups to investors and helps them get a foothold in the Chicago business community.
Sociavore, whose customers are about evenly split between Americans and Canadians, may soon undergo another transformation, but Gilani says this one won’t be positive. President Trump has proposed a 25% tariff on all Canadian and Mexican products entering the U.S.
In November, Trump posted on his Truth Social site that he would impose tariffs on Inauguration Day, and said they would remain until the nations stop illegal immigration and the movement of drugs, particularly fentanyl, through the U.S. northern and southern borders.
But on Monday, Trump did not impose the tariffs, instead signaling they will happen Feb. 1. The president called Canada “a very bad abuser.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded to the latest tariff tough talk by saying Tuesday that if Trump really wants a booming economy, he’s going to need Canadian natural resources such as oil, lumber, aluminum and steel, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
“Everything is on the table, and I support the principle of dollar-for-dollar matching tariffs,” Trudeau said.
Canada is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world, and 75% of Canada’s exports, which also include automobiles and parts, go to the U.S. Canadian officials have said that tariffs would increase the cost of living in the U.S. and hurt workers here.
“There’s so much exchange of goods and it’s kind of like free flowing right now, and so the tariffs, for both sides, it would be really, really difficult,” Gilani said.
Every day, about $3 billion worth of goods and services, as well as about 400,000 people, traverse the United States’ northern border, said Canadian American Business Council CEO Beth Burke. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states, including Illinois.
The ties between Canada and Illinois are particularly strong.
Canada sells more to Illinois than it sells to China, its largest foreign export market after the U.S., according to a 2024 fact sheet by the Canadian embassy in Washington. The fact sheet also reports that Illinois sells more goods to Canada than to its next two largest foreign markets combined, and 420 Canadian-owned companies employ 44,200 workers in Illinois. Illinois’ top goods exports to Canada include automobiles, fuel oil and plastics and plastic articles.
Beyond the commerce connections, there are other ties between Illinois and Canada, ranging from a Canadian women’s club to an award-winning French Canadian restaurant in Lakeview to a Chicago Facebook group for expats.
Canadian companies with a major presence in Chicagoland include the banks BMO and CIBC, as well as brewer Molson Coors, according to the consulate general of Canada in Chicago. Additionally, Chicago is the primary continental hub that connects Canada’s two freight railways with the U.S. rail network.
“We have about 20 members who have footprints in Chicago, and those footprints include regional offices, distribution, packaging centers, retail centers, terminals,” Burke said. “Those companies employ about 1.3 million people in the Chicago area.”
The council, a nonpartisan nonprofit with members that are companies operating on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border, believes that any tariffs, even narrow ones, would be “problematic,” Burke said.
Kevin Tibbles, a retired NBC News correspondent who grew up in Canada and was based in Chicago for about two decades and still lives in the area, said that many of Trump’s comments are likely just “bluster.”
“On the other hand, a country like Canada cannot simply ignore comments made when the United States is your largest trading partner,” Tibbles said. “And they are clearly alarmed by what … Trump has been saying.”
In addition to the tariff talk, Trump also has referred to Trudeau as the governor of Canada and floated the idea multiple times that Canada should join the U.S. as the 51st state.
Soon after Trump made his November post about imposing a tariff on Canadian products, Trudeau flew to Florida.
“Trudeau flew down to Mar-a-Lago to have dinner with him to discuss perhaps ways of getting out of this perceived (tariffs) crisis, and of course Trump’s response was to belittle Trudeau and refer to him as the governor of Canada and the governor of the 51st state,” Tibbles said. “It was rude, and Canadians are not rude people.”
Bruce Heyman, a Chicago-area resident and former U.S. ambassador to Canada, said the relationship between the U.S. and Canada is a collection of many relationships.
In June, Ontario and Illinois finalized a new “memorandum of understanding” to promote “increased trade, attract investment and foster ongoing collaboration across key sectors,” according to the province.
In May, Mayor Brandon Johnson signed a pledge to transform the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River basin into a “thriving blue-green economic corridor” with the mayors of Montreal and Milwaukee at a conference in Montreal, according to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative.
The overarching U.S.-Canada relationship is stronger because of tourism and many families have members on both sides of the border, Heyman said. And it’s not unusual for a company to be based in one country but have operations or customers or both across the border.
“At the federal level, the new administration is definitely stressing the relationship right now,” Heyman said last week. “Some of the language that he’s (Trump) used is stressing the relationship. But the business community is a surprising area of strength between our two countries.”
Burke said she was in favor of showing Trump that a good relationship between the nations is a win for both.
“I think the reality is: As (Trump) continues to engage and talk to all of the businesses that have investments on both sides of the border and all of the people whose jobs depend on this important relationship, he will see the real value and find the wins for the U.S,” Burke said.
Intertwined with the business ties are strong cultural links between the countries. Canada is among the “most important” sources of international tourists who visit Illinois and Chicago, Heyman said. The consulate general of Canada in Chicago provides services to Canadians visiting and living in Illinois, Wisconsin, parts of Indiana, Kansas and Missouri.
Canadian visitors may typically stay in the United States for six months without a visa, according to Canada’s government.
“You will know how many Canadians are here when you go to a (Blackhawks) game and you see any of the Canadian teams,” Heyman said. “We see them in baseball. We see them a little bit in basketball with the Raptors.”
Out of the 24 players on the Blackhawks roster, 10 were born in the U.S. and eight were born in Canada, including 19-year-old superstar Connor Bedard, according to the team’s website.
The Stanley Club bars at Johnny’s Icehouse East and Johnny’s Icehouse West, which are on either side of the United Center, are the top two on-premise sellers of Canadian Labatt beer in Illinois, according to Johnny’s Icehouse. Johnny’s Icehouse also says the combined amount sold at the two bars and their rinks makes it the 19th largest purchaser of Labatt in the U.S.
The Canadian Women’s Club of Chicago, which formed in 1960, has 60 to 80 members and meets once a month, except during the summertime, treasurer Barbara Dickie said. About 30 members attended a recent Christmas luncheon, Dickie said.
“It’s primarily a social club. Our members are wide-ranging,” Dickie said. “It’s not just Chicago. It’s all over the Chicago suburbs. And we have some former members — one has moved back to the U.K. and another one has moved back to Canada. But they’re still quite active through Zoom at least.”
The members come from or have lived in all parts of Canada, Dickie said. Some members are not even Canadian, but just have an interest in Canada or relatives that live there.
In Lakeview at a restaurant named after his grandmother, executive chef Ryan Brosseau has been serving dishes with a French Canadian spirit since January 2021. The principles Brosseau learned growing up in his grandmother’s kitchen in Ontario inform the menu of Dear Margaret.
“I’m from southwestern Ontario, so we’re surrounded by Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin — so we’re like in that geography,” Brosseau said. “So all the food is the same, at least the resources for food are, like the fish and game and that stuff.”
Brosseau agrees with Tibbles’ assessment about the politeness of Canadians and their lack of boastfulness. When someone tells him their dinner at Dear Margaret was the best meal they’ve ever had, Brosseau doesn’t know how to say thanks without feeling awkward, he said.
Other than Canadians perhaps being a little more polite, Gilani said the personalities of people from the Midwest and nearby parts of Canada are quite related.
“As a person who spent some time in Chicago, I think there’s so many similarities between the people — people from southern Ontario and people from Illinois,” Gilani said. “It was super easy for us to be part of the accelerator. We’re so similar being so close in proximity.”
The Associated Press contributed.
