Canadians are keeping up their efforts to boycott travel to the United States, with air travel from the country dropping last month by nearly 24% and car travel by more than 30% compared with the same time last year, according to data released Wednesday by Canada’s statistics office.

The decline, which has lasted 10 consecutive months, is part of a broader shift in Canadians’ attitudes toward the United States, amid tensions over President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods and the rhetoric that many Canadians feel is condescending.

In April, Mark Carney, then the prime minister-elect of Canada, introduced a pass that made access to the country’s galleries, museums and the national rail service free to those younger than 18 in a bid to encourage Canadians to see more of their own country.

“At a time when our economy is under attack from President Trump, Canadians are stepping up — helping our neighbors, buying local and celebrating our beautiful country,” Carney said. “We are a proud country,” he added, “and united, we will strengthen our Canadian identity in the face of this crisis.”

Historically, Canadians have made up a large number of international travelers, accounting for roughly a quarter of foreign visitors to the United States. But their absence is driving down international travel spending, which is expected to drop 3.2% to $173 billion this year, according to a recent report from the U.S. Travel Association, a nonprofit group that represents the American travel industry.

As outbound international travel keeps growing, the group said, the travel trade deficit for 2025 was on track to reach nearly $70 billion.

Laura Presley, an analyst with Statistics Canada, which released the new government data, said that while the group kept track of Canadian tourism to the United States, it had been monitoring the figures more closely in light of the rising tensions over trade.

It was not the first time, Presley said, that Canadians had avoided the United States. Numbers also declined after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in New York City in 2001 and in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But, she added, “what makes this more notable is the extent of it, or the length of the trend.”

In many cases, Canadians have cited the Trump administration as the reason for choosing not to visit. Some Canadian snowbirds who had ordinarily spent their winters in warmer destinations, like Palm Springs, California, said they were canceling trips, cutting visits short or even selling their homes in the United States. In August, the Girl Guides of Canada, its equivalent of the Girl Scouts, said it was pausing U.S. trips over safety concerns. And even many of those who live just across the border, and once regularly crossed into New York to enjoy the changing fall foliage, have stopped coming.

Julian Karaguesian, a visiting lecturer in economic policy at McGill University who studies U.S.-Canada relations and is based in Ottawa, Ontario, said he believed it was Trump’s rhetoric in particular that had turned away many Canadians.

“The tariff war is one thing, but it’s the tone of the trade war. It’s the tone of the poking about ‘51st state,’” he said.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Livia Albeck-Ripka/Ian Willms
c. 2025 The New York Times Company