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BUFFALO — They are just not into us!

Most of the Americans at the Buffalo Bills game in Orchard Park on Thursday night against the Pittsburgh Steelers, that is.

Sometimes when you wonder what people are thinking about you comes the rude awakening that they are not thinking about you at all. It’s not personal. Unlike many leaders, and citizens, on both sides of the border, there are people who don’t make their politics their personality. And, while some make who they vote for or against their identity, there are many who merely live and let live and don’t tell others how they should do that.

It turns out I was naive in thinking that the vitriolic, potentially life-changing, tariff and trade war between Canada and the United States was going to somehow manifest itself into a big moment at this big event in Buffalo, at the amazing new Highmark Stadium. It didn’t materialize. There is more going on in the world than hurtful insults being hurled back and forth between elected representatives.

Many Canadians travelled across enemy lines in the tariff war but didn’t find a hostile environment but instead — from the fans in New York state to the border agents on both sides of the border — hospitable and welcoming.

In reality, it seems a majority of the Americans I spoke with before, during and after the game, not only didn’t have strong opinions on U.S. President Donald Trump renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America or the tariff war, but didn’t know about any of it at all.

They seemed focused on this Bills’ upcoming NFL season, their state-of-the-art new football venue, and their great American lives. Media friends, like Jerry Agar at Newstalk 1010 and Greg Brady at AM640, were not surprised by this revelation because they both worked for more than a decade each in the United States in talk radio and understand Americans are kind, big hearted, family driven, entrepreneurial, in some places religious, and patriotic.

American radio on trade war but no so much Americans themselves

Agar told me that this topic is currently hot on American talk radio and in the political world, but not as sizzling as it is in Canada. I learned about U.S. radio firsthand being interested since I did interviews on radio station 97.1 FM Talk in St. Louis with Mark Reardon, and again on WBEN 930 in Buffalo with Susan Rose Wenger and Brian Mazurowski.

Joe Warmington 🔊 on WBEN radio in Buffalo, keeping it neighbourly:
“We love you… don’t fall for all the politics. It’s not personal for regular Canadians towards Americans and particularly upstate New York. It’ll get back on track one day for sure.”

Buffalo and Toronto still… https://t.co/AfJvh1elsZ pic.twitter.com/laX5XwOTo7

— cbcwatcher (@cbcwatcher) August 27, 2026

So, the information is out there. But it’s just one thing in the news amongst many. It’s not the main thing like it is in Canada. There was no slight intended in not being hyper-focused on the news of the trade war. They just got their own stuff going on.

Now, that said, by the end of the evening, with my son JJ representing Canada and his Maple Leafs cap and me in my Roots sweater, I finally found someone up to speed on trade-gate. Buffalo resident Jen Hatch said she was embarrassed by the fracture between the two countries.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Hatch. “There are many of us who are frustrated.”

She said Buffalo and Niagara Falls on the New York side of the border will suffer if Canadians stop coming over the bridges. “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze,” she said, adding it “will always be Lake Ontario.”

The trade war with Canada is getting personal. "I've never heard of anything so stupid or evil" - @joe_warmington https://t.co/lo7BWbFcOZ

— Susan Wenger (@SusanWBEN) August 27, 2026

As ludicrous as Trump’s name change of Lake Ontario seems, it should not be glossed over that he only made that move in retaliation to what Ontario Premier Doug Ford said about him being a “loser” and telling the president to “kiss his ass” as well as other below-the-belt taunts from Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, who called him weak and connected to the Epstein files. Even Prime Minister Mark Carney has talked of American “hegemony” and a “rupture” with a friend that is no longer reliable and signs its agreements in pencil.

Threatening cutting electricity unCanadian

But worse than any name change was the threat to cut off energy to our best friend, neighbours and customer. This was not only unCanadian, it borders on evil.

The damage that these Canadian leaders have engaged in reckless endangerment could have catastrophic results in terms of Canada’s way of life. They wanted to get the Trump administration’s attention. Now they have it. Now every crazy woke Canadian story gets noticed — like the CBC’s memo to not call the 9/11 murderers terrorists.

Just this year, @FBI has been instrumental in or directly responsible for multiple disruptions of significant terrorist and violent criminal organizations operating within Canada. Failure to recognize and confront radical and terrorist ideologies significantly endangers our… https://t.co/mTeyUfStgv

— Ambassador Pete Hoekstra (@USAmbCanada) August 28, 2026

Said FBI Director Kash Patel:

“Any agency in Canada that doesn’t publicly reject this bastardization of history, and an insult to the souls lost during our largest terrorist attack in U.S. history will no longer have friend in this FBI.”

As U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra reminds, the FBI helps Canada catch terrorists.

Meanwhile as Carney travels the world to try to replace the massive American market, he may find they don’t have better bourbon or investment dollars.

For now, the focus is on trying to shame and guilt Canadians from buying American, which is nonsensical and will be hard to do since from smart phones, computers to Starbucks, McDonalds, Shake Shack and Buffalo Bills games, they are a big part of Canadian life. The best move is to think whatever you want, but stop smearing the American president and the country that provides for our way of life and get back to the bargaining table.

If Americans don’t think much about Canadians now, imagine how it will be when we are no longer their best friend and customer.

  • WARMINGTON: As Trump escalates trade war, all eyes will be on NFL game in Buffalo
  • LILLEY: Trade talks collapse under weight of politics on both sides of the border