A Montreal merchant knows his hour of glory after having made the headlines of the most important daily newspapers in the United States on Monday with the mention warrioror fighter, well evident.
“It’s quite special to collect yourself on the USA Today’s cover page,” Marc-André Bazergui, owner of the Flag Shop in Montreal, on Tuesday.
From the Montreal showcase to American kiosks: the unexpected course of a Quebec entrepreneur who has become a symbol of commercial resistance across the border.
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The entrepreneur, who took over the family business in 2018 from his aunt Ginette, notes that his customers now reject Canadian flags made in the United States.
“We are returned to a point where customers do not want flags marked” Made in the USA “,” says the entrepreneur.
This reluctance of consumers from here to buy products from the United States illustrates the effects of Trump measures on retail.
Marc-André Bazergui had ordered Canadian flags made in the United States a month before Trump threats to make Canada “51st state”. Since then, impossible to sell them despite competitive prices.
“No one wants it, even if they are cheaper,” he explains.
Inside the Montreal Flag Shop, dozens of flags line the walls, but it is the small “made in Canada” which now make all the difference for customers.
Photo taken from the Instagram account @leflagshopmontre
Creative solutions
This resistance is not limited to patriotic symbols. “People are more aware of the origin,” noted, in November 2024, the Quebec business woman Myriam Belzile-Maguire.
Founder of the Maguire shoe brand with a shop in Montreal, one in Toronto and one in New York, the designer serves American consumers from her Repentigny warehouse.
“We knew it would end, the United States lost money,” she said then about the end of the minimis exemption, which allows free entry to the United States of $ 800.
“The free entry of our products in the United States is over,” she said. It still didn’t happen, but Donald Trump promised to do this this fall.
The USA Today investigation
In the window of the Flag Shop, two Canadian flags are custody by this cold winter day, silent witnesses of an economic patriotism which surprises to the American media.
Photo taken from the Instagram account @leflagshopmontre
The USA Todayin its Monday edition, surveyed restaurateurs and merchants in the Montreal region about their reactions to Trump’s economic measures.
Marc-André Bazergui was among the entrepreneurs interviewed on “the gestures they put to protest” against the customs tariffs.
Quebec reactions do not go unnoticed in our southern neighbors, proves this front page. The title “Relucing Warriors” testifies to the perception that Americans have of the Canadian commercial resistance.
For Bazergui, who has already diversified his services after the pandemic with 3D printing and embroidery, this unexpected notoriety could become an asset. “I asked a friend to pick me up an official copy of the paper version,” he said, amused by this sudden celebrity.
