A:
Short answer: no. That's not just our opinion. It's also that of several Canadian friends and subscribers we consulted for this answer.
Right up front, we'll say that we weren't interested in writing about the political reasons for the Canadian boycott of the U.S. We all know what they are and we're not, by any means, claiming that they're irrelevant; we're just heading off all the invective, vituperation, and calumniating. If any of it enters the comments, it will be deleted.
First, the numbers. Canadians taking road trips into the U.S. — the most common way of visiting — dropped by 15% in February compared to February 2025 and was down 32% for the first two months of the year. There was also an 18% year-over-year decline in air travelers from Canada to the U.S. in February.
Meanwhile, Canadian visits to other countries were up 7.2% year over year. So Canadians are traveling, as they're wont to do, just not to the U.S. From the other side of the border, Americans visiting Canada in February were up 6% compared to a year ago.
Nearly a quarter (23%) of Canadian travelers have canceled a previously planned trip to the U.S., according to a Longwoods International tracking study of Canadian travelers.
Now, Canadians of our acquaintance cited the following rationales for the boycott.
One focused on history. To wit:
"The U.S. was three years late getting into WW I and two years late getting getting into WW II. Canadians were there, dying in Europe, and afterwards in Korea, the first Gulf War, and Afghanistan. Canadians also gave literal shelter to American Embassy staff in 1979 in Iran and provided them with genuine Canadian identity documents to smuggle them back to freedom. Canadians continuously supply genuine Canadian documents to the CIA and its operatives for covert purposes and we continuously provide back channels to facilitate communication with countries that the U.S. doesn't have official diplomatic relationships with.
"The boycott also extends to U.S. products. We now see produce in our supermarkets from countries I've never seen before. Like South Africa."
A Canadian world traveler we've known for decades told us that he'll never return to the U.S., where he has family and many friends, due to his treatment the last time he crossed the border. He was detained for more than an hour, as an immigration official pored over his passport, which had stamps from upwards of 50 countries. He didn't know what they were looking for or suspicious of, but he was certain he was being treated as a suspect, possibly even facing a longer detention. Only when a supervisor accosted the official over the long backup of international entries was our friend passed through. He said, "I'm rarely treated like that crossing borders, not even going into communist and Middle Eastern countries. That's it for me. I don't need to go to the U.S.
"Besides," he added, "the exchange rate sucks and everything is more expensive in the U.S. to begin with."
A third Canadian told us she feels the U.S. is unsafe for travel, particularly due to high rates of gun violence. She said that Canada's official travel advisory for the U.S. has highlighted this issue ever since she can remember (she's 42) and it was updated late last year to reiterate warnings about firearm-related risks in public spaces.
Canadians, of course, aren't alone. International travel to the U.S. dropped 6% last year and so far this year is down nearly 8%. The U.S. is the only major country in the world to experience a decline in international tourism, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.
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