Nearly 500,000 fewer travellers crossed the land border from Canada into the U.S. in February compared to the same month last year, according to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the latest sign that President Donald Trump’s taunts and tariffs have shaken bilateral relations.
The number of travellers entering the U.S. in a passenger vehicle — the most common way to make the trip — dropped from 2,696,512 in February 2024 to 2,223,408 last month, reaching levels not seen since cross-border travel normalized in the post-COVID-19 era.
In fact, the number of travellers driving over the U.S. land border is the lowest it’s been since April 2022, according to CBP data. The Canadian government didn’t lift all travel-related restrictions, like testing and quarantine measures, until October of that year. The fact that the current flow of travellers is at the same level as when travel was much more arduous is revealing, experts say.
The data shows there was a sudden reversal in February, just as Trump was launching his trade war and ramping up his annexationist rhetoric about Canada becoming the 51st state.
The number of cross-border travellers headed for the U.S. in October, November, December and January were all well above the numbers reported for the same month the year prior — but in February there was a clear break in the upward trend.
Len Saunders is an immigration lawyer in Blaine, Wash., a town of about 6,000 people right on the border with B.C.
He said the decline in Canadian day trippers is evident at every turn in a town that caters to cross-border travellers.
“This is like COVID all over again,” he said in an interview with CBC News. “With the rhetoric coming from Trump — people just don’t want to come down here.
“If you’re not buying American liquor in B.C., you’re definitely not coming here to save 20 bucks on gas. There’s just a huge reduction in Canadians — you can see it in the Costco parking lot, at Trader Joe’s. Canadians are voting with their wallets right now. That’s what’s happening,” he said.
Saunders said the 51st state taunts, the tariff threats and the reports of Canadians being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are all driving people away.
“We’re only two months into a four-year administration. If they keep this up there will be no Canadians coming down here — there will be a 100 per cent boycott of this country,” he said.
Barbara Barrett is the executive director of the Frontier Duty Free Association, a group that represents 32 independently owned duty-free shops that dot the Canadian side of the land border from coast to coast.
She said the travel decline is “catastrophic” and the mostly family-run stores she represents are seeing sales drop off dramatically.
She said sales never really recovered after the pandemic and now, with the recent disruptions, are down about 80 per cent compared to pre-2020 figures.
“Without hyperbole, it’s a dire situation. It’s very worrying,” Barrett said in an interview with CBC News. “It’s pandemic-level stuff for sure. It’s dramatic — the borders are just not seeing the traffic.”
The poor Canada-U.S. exchange rate, which is partly driven by Trump’s trade policies, has made jaunts over the border less attractive for many Canadian tourists and bargain-hunting shoppers.
But Barrett said cross-border traffic declines are not because of the bad exchange rate — she thinks it’s driven by the anti-tariff sentiment that’s led many Canadians to drop travel to the U.S. while the country is in this fight with Trump.
“We’ve seen the dollar fluctuate up and down before and we haven’t seen this sort of dramatic decline,” she said. “If it was all about the dollar — we’d have a flood of Americans coming over and we’re not seeing that.”
Beyond passenger vehicles, there are other signs of a travel drop-off in the CBP data.
The number of truck drivers making the cross-border trip fell from 493,000 in February 2024 to 473,000 this year.
There are relatively few pedestrians crossing the border by foot in the dead of winter, but even those figures were also lower. CBP reported the number of walkers fell from roughly 117,000 in February 2024 to 99,000 last month.
The number of passengers travelling by air to the U.S. held steady and even increased slightly compared to the same month last year — 50,000 more people made the trip — but even air travel hit a multi-month low.
Air travel is usually booked weeks or months in advance and is generally harder to cancel than a day trip by land. Some airlines have also since reported a slump in U.S. bookings.
Statistics Canada data backs up what the CBP is reporting.
In February, the number of Canadian residents returning from the U.S. by automobile dropped 23 per cent compared to the same month in 2024, according to the agency.
There were about 1.2 million return trips last month compared to 1.5 million the year before.
The federal agency described those figures as a “steep” decline, comparable to the drop-off registered during the health crisis when cross-border travel ground to a halt.
There was also a decline in Americans coming to Canada by automobile, but the drop was not as dramatic, StatsCan found, with a 7.9 per cent slump recorded.
Trump first launched his trade war with Canada on Feb. 1, which prompted former prime minister Justin Trudeau to respond with retaliatory tariffs and a call for Canadians to buy local products and travel within Canada.
Trudeau urged people to “to choose Canada” to send a signal to the White House that the country won’t stand for punishing tariffs that have the potential to torpedo the economy.
“It might mean changing your summer vacation plans, staying here in Canada and exploring the many sites, national parks and historical destinations our country has to offer,” he said.
New data shows Canadians are taking fewer trips to the United States, especially by land, with many citing the political climate under U.S. President Donald Trump as the top reason for not crossing the border.
Trump has imposed 25 per cent tariffs on some Canadian goods to supposedly spur action on drugs and migrants at the border. He later added another tariff layer with a 25 per cent levy on steel and aluminum imports.
The president is also expected to hit Canada with more “retaliatory” tariffs on April 2.
Canada punched back with its own countermeasures, which Prime Minister Mark Carney has said will remain in place “until the Americans show us respect.”
