The accidental tourist upside of U.S. tariffs | Canada Voices

It is a basic part of economics that tariffs costs are ultimately borne by the country imposing them. A recent report from a U.S. think tank offers a new way of looking at those costs.

Consumers pay the price of tariffs, but the report from the Center for International and Strategic Studies shows Canadians’ refusal to travel south of the border since U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war began has also proven to be a punch in the gut to many American workers.

The federal government has put broad counter-tariffs on U.S. goods and provinces have fought back with bans on booze and other measures. Ordinary Canadians have looked to retaliate with their wallets, whether it’s buying Canadian-made goods at the grocery store over American products and refusing to spend their time and money travelling south of the border.

Ever since Mr. Trump began musing about making Canada the 51^st state and started slapping tariffs on an ever-widening range of goods, an aggrieved patriotism has fuelled antagonism toward the United States. The Washington, D.C.-based think tank says those hard feelings will linger, a contradiction of Mr. Trump’s belief that tariffs will force Canadians to capitulate to his will.

There’s a pretty big flaw in that thinking, the report points out. “Once consumers in a democratic society organize around a grievance, state-to-state economic statecraft cannot reliably dictate their behaviour,” it states.

Translation: Canadians are angry and, at least for the foreseeable future, there is no capitulation on the horizon when it comes to travel.

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The report calculates the considerable economic pain that refusal to travel has cost border towns in the U.S. Using land-crossings data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and public employment records, the think tank estimates that the plunge in travel to the States cost border communities between 10,000 and 30,000 leisure and hospital jobs.

That has meant lost earnings of between US$500-million and $1-billion on an annual basis. In other words, every dollar collected in tariffs on Canadian goods has cost American workers in border towns between 5 cents and 10 cents.

Last year, the U.S. Travel Association estimated that declining international tourism, including from Canada, would cost the overall economy U.S.$5.7-billion in 2025 compared with the year before.

Even as Mr. Trump eased tariffs last spring, Canadians’ feelings toward spending their leisure time and money travelling to the States did not soften, with land crossings in March and April of this year still approximately 20 per cent lower than 2024, according to the think tank.

Nor does it seem that Canadians are in any mood to change their minds. A survey conducted this April by Longwoods International, a market research consultancy, found 57 per cent of Canadians said U.S. trade policies made them less likely to visit in 2027.

That was before Mr. Trump slapped 50 per cent tariffs on even more Canadian goods.

The travel boycott alone won’t end Mr. Trump’s erratic trade war. But it does add pressure.

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And, the more Canadians who choose to spend their travel dollars here, the more they help bolster the Canadian economy. Domestic tourism pumped $83.1-billion into the economy in 2025, an increase of 8.7 per cent compared with 2024, according to Statistics Canada.

Every dollar spent here helps to counter Mr. Trump’s tariffs. And with the relatively weak dollar, Canadians have that much more reason to shun travel to the United States and spend their travel dollars here.

And here’s hoping that wounded national pride can bloom into a deeper, richer appreciation of the nation as Canadians travel to destinations across the country, visiting parks and towns and cities they might not otherwise.

At a time when national unity appears to be more fractured than it has in decades, with a vote in Alberta that could begin the process of separating from Canada set for this fall and the Parti Québécois promising to hold a referendum on independence in its first term if elected, the need for Canadians to visit each other has never seemed greater.

The irony of Mr. Trump trying to bash Canada into submission with tariffs is that they hurt Americans – but could end up helping Canadians better understand each other.