MONTREAL: Rosalie Cote and her parents vacationed in the US state of Maine every summer for 25 years — but this year they are staying home, incensed like many Canadians by Donald Trump’s threats of annexation and tariffs.

The United States was the top destination for Canadian tourists, with 20.4 million visits reported last year by the US Travel Association, pumping some US$20.5 billion into the American economy and supporting 140,000 jobs. But that number is expected to plummet this year as Canadians — the targets of relentless attacks by an America First president intent on wielding tariffs as a policy tool and who speaks frequently of turning their country into the 51st state — cancel their travel plans.

“We don’t want to support the United States. It’s a matter of principle,” explains Cote.

Romane Gauvreau cancelled her mountain biking trip to Vermont and a family vacation to Maine. “We don’t want to go to a place where democracy is in danger, where people suffer great injustices, and where people are being deported,” Gauvreau said.

They are not outliers. A recent Abacus Data survey found 56 per cent of Canadians have changed or cancelled their travel plans to the United States. Bookings to American destinations in February alone fell 40pc compared to the same month last year, while 20pc of pre-existing reservations were cancelled, according to the travel agency Flight Centre Canada.

Canadians who typically spend winters in warmer southern US states, colloquially known as “snowbirds” and whose numbers are estimated to top one million, are also rethinking their plans.

Andre Laurent, a retired civil servant, spent half of each of the past 22 years in Florida to escape Canada’s frigid winters. But he says everything has changed and become “unpleasant” since the return of Trump to the Oval Office in January. And so, he decided to sell his Florida home.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2025