For years, Canadians from southern Ontario have made the short drive across the border to Buffalo, New York, to load up on cheap milk and shop at retailers like Target and Trader Joe’s that they don’t have access to at home.
But those trips have been happening less often since President Donald Trump took office and began threatening tariffs and disparaging Canada, even saying that the country should become the 51st US state.
Vehicle and truck crossings at the US-Canadian border in western New York are down 13% this year as fewer Canadians make the trip, said Mark Poloncarz, who runs Erie County, which includes Buffalo. The county’s initial sales tax receipts have slipped 7% through mid-February, a $4.9 million reduction in revenue. Poloncarz blames the decline at least partly on a drop in Canadian visitors.
“We are now starting to see the negative impact of tariffs in western New York,” said Poloncarz, a Democrat who has served as Erie’s county executive since 2012. “No one wins in a trade war between the United States and Canada.”
The pain in the Buffalo area exemplifies a broader fraying of the deep economic ties that have long united the two countries. In some cases, Canadians are even selling US properties and moving back home. The US is poised to lose about 3 million Canadian visitors this year, a 15% drop that will translate into $3.3 billion of lost spending, according to Tourism Economics.
“The setback will be large enough to affect profits and seasonal hiring in destinations that count most heavily on Canadian travelers,” said Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics, a unit of Oxford Economics.
The travel effect is unfolding against a backdrop of an intensifying trade war that’s roiling ties between longtime allies. Canada announced new 25% tariffs on about C$30 billion ($20.8 billion) of US-made products on Wednesday, including steel and aluminum, striking back after Trump went ahead with global duties on imports of those metals.
For the US tourism industry, the latest blow came earlier with the revelation this week that the Trump administration is preparing a tougher new travel rule for Canadians, who typically make up the largest group of international visitors to the US. The regulation would require them to register their information with the US government and submit to fingerprinting if they cross by land and plan to stay longer than 30 days.
That would potentially affect many Canadian snowbirds, retirees who spend the winter in warmer US states such as Florida and Arizona. In total, about 20 million Canadians visited the US in 2024, spending $20.5 billion and propping up 140,000 jobs, the US Travel Association estimates.
Canceling Disneyland
Already this year, Canadian visitors traveling by car fell 23% in February to 1.2 million, the second straight month of year-over-year declines, according to Statistics Canada. Another drag is coming from the Canadian dollar, which has fallen about 6.1% against the US dollar during the past year.
Some would-be travelers, including British Columbia Premier David Eby, have canceled trips. Eby said he had to break the news to his children that their spring vacation to California’s Disneyland theme park was off, even after spending C$1,000 on tickets. He’s been urging residents to avoid US travel if possible.
“We are starting to see groups that typically have trips planned saying, ‘You know, we are going to stay in Canada,’” said Fred Ferguson, chief executive officer of the American Bus Association.
At first, many tourists were only avoiding Republican states but now many are skipping all US travel, said Laura Mezzacapo, accounting manager at Vancouver-based The Travel Group, a travel agency.
Ahead of a payment deadline at the end of March, a group of more than 20 travelers backed out of a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico, saying they were holding off on visiting the US for now, Mezzacapo said. Each client got a C$700 deposit back and avoided paying the trip fee of between C$4,500 and C$6,000.
Santa Fe is one of Travel Group’s most popular destinations due to its arts and wellness scene. But the agency is no longer promoting that city or any other US trips on its social media, marketing or advertising campaigns.
“We won’t promote Santa Fe until everyone feels it’s OK to travel again,” Mezzacapo said.
Shifting opinions
Contributing to the decline is a change in attitudes.
In a survey released last month, polling firm Leger found that almost half of Canadian travelers said they were less likely to visit the US in 2025 compared with last year, a response that was particularly prevalent among people over 55 and higher-income households. Only 10% of respondents said they were more likely to visit the US, with 43% reporting no change in their intentions.
In a subsequent poll, Leger found signs of a broader breakdown. According to that survey, most Canadians have reduced their purchases of US goods and 30% said they considered the US an enemy country. By comparison, 31% said they considered the US an ally.
Still, after years of largely seamless North American integration, many Canadians are hesitant to turn away from the US even as they grit their teeth at recent White House policies.
While Trump’s tariffs and his talk of the 51st state offend many Canadian snowbirds, there’s little evidence they’re leaving en masse, said Gwendal Gauthier, publisher of Le Courrier des Ameriques, a monthly newspaper that targets French-speaking Canadians in South Florida. He said he has no trouble distributing 50,000 copies of the free publication.
“The Canadians don’t like what is happening, but they are not running away from Florida,” said Gauthier, who also administers a 98,000-member Facebook group called Les Snowbirds Quebecois en Floride. “There is no panic.”
But there is anger.
Constance Bonneville said she decided to leave the US after Trump’s election in November, citing his anti-LGBTQ stances and trade policies with Canada. She put her house up for sale in Scottsdale, Arizona, and left her career as a real estate agent after more than 10 years in the US.
“The vibe for me is, I’m out of here,” she said.
Now that she’s in British Columbia, she said Trump’s escalating trade war “made me realize how much of a right decision I made about being on this side of the border. Canadians are very united, and we’re taking measures to protect ourselves against the United States of America. I mean, that’s crazy.”
With assistance from Michael Smith, Eliyahu Kamisher and Anna J Kaiser.
Enda Curran, Alicia Clanton and Julie Fine, Bloomberg News
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