💥 BREAKING NEWS: Trump mocked Canada—now billions in lost tourism and sales are hammering the U.S. economy ⚡.CT

It started with mockery.

Trump’s handpicked U.S. ambassador to Canada went on television and listed the reasons the president thought Canadians were “mean and nasty to deal with.” The comment was supposed to sting. Instead, Canadians laughed, shrugged… and then did something far more dangerous to Washington:

They stopped coming.

Flights that used to be packed with Canadian tourists heading to malls, theme parks, and winter getaways in the U.S. started leaving half empty.

Hotel rooms in Florida, Arizona, and California sat vacant. And in border towns that had long depended on Canadians crossing over to spend, shop, and fill gas tanks, cash registers suddenly went quiet.

On the surface, there were no angry boycotts, no fiery speeches, no mass marches. Just a simple, quiet decision repeated millions of times:

“If he’s calling us nasty… we’ll spend our money somewhere else.”

By 2025, the numbers told a brutal story. International visitor spending in the United States was projected to drop by around 7%, a loss of roughly $12.5 billion USD — the steepest decline since the pandemic. And most of that hole was coming from one place: Canada.

Canadian visitor spending alone was on track to fall by $5.7 billion USD, with an estimated 320 million fewer trips. Flights once dominated by Canadian snowbirds became eerily calm. In border cities like Buffalo, shops were so desperate they started offering $500 gift cards just to lure Canadians back.

At the same time, California launched a special campaign targeting Canadian tourists after visitor numbers from the north dropped 12% in February. States that had once taken Canadian tourism for granted were now suddenly begging for it.

How did it get this bad?

The roots of the shift weren’t just economic — they were emotional.

Repeatedly, Trump floated the idea that Canada should become the “51st state” of the United States. He suggested that without a trade surplus with America, Canada couldn’t survive on its own. Behind closed doors, his advisers reportedly called Canada difficult, uncooperative, a problem to be managed instead of a partner to be respected.

Then came the tariff threats:
25% on Canadian goods.
10% on energy.
35–50% on metals.
Up to 200% on pharmaceuticals.

Some of these proposals were absurdly linked to drug trafficking, even though Canada accounts for less than 1% of the fentanyl entering the U.S. For many Canadians, this wasn’t “tough negotiation” anymore. It felt like economic bullying — and a direct challenge to Canada’s sovereignty.

The first response didn’t come from Ottawa.
It came from the checkout aisle.

Canadians began turning labels over and putting U.S. products back on the shelf. The “Made in Canada” stamp transformed from a small piece of text into a badge of pride. By early 2025, more than two-thirds of Canadian consumers said they were actively choosing domestic products.

National pride surged. Polls showed 67% of Canadians feeling proud or very proud of their identity — a nine-point jump in just two months. That pride spilled into public spaces: the U.S. national anthem was loudly booed at hockey games in Ottawa and an NBA matchup in Toronto.

Provinces stepped in too. British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia began planning to pull American-made liquor from government-run stores.

In Ontario alone, the LCBO — which generates close to $1 billion CAD annually from U.S. alcohol — reportedly froze new orders. That sent an unmistakable chill through American suppliers.

Then came the second wave of blowback: travel and real estate.

Border crossings by car from the U.S. to Canada dropped by 35% in April 2025 and 36.9% in July year-over-year. Air travel fell more than 20% in April and nearly 25% over the summer. From April to September, airline tickets from Canada to the U.S. dropped by around 10% compared to 2024.

Among Canadians aged 61+, traditionally the core winter travelers, the collapse was staggering: only about 10% still planned to visit the U.S., a 66% plunge from the year before.

Over half of Canadians who owned property in the U.S. said they were thinking about selling within a year — and a clear majority blamed politics. Money that once flowed into Florida condos and Arizona retirement homes began redirecting to Mexico, the Caribbean, Portugal, and France.

Meanwhile, those same Canadians started spending at home.

From May to August 2025, domestic tourism inside Canada generated $59 billion CAD, a 6% increase year-over-year. Local hotels, restaurants, and attractions started filling the gap U.S. destinations were losing.

Manufacturing shifted too. Irving Personal Care — the only Canadian-branded diaper manufacturer — saw weekly shipments quadruple as big retailers moved away from U.S. imports. One American brand, Sour Puss Lure, lost 98% of its Canadian market share and had to physically move its production line to Montreal just to survive.

Walmart, Loblaws, Metro, and others reportedly began trimming U.S. imports while expanding shelf space for Canadian products, especially in automotive-adjacent goods. In Windsor, auto suppliers quietly restructured their supply chains to avoid future border tariffs that could add more than $6,000 per vehicle.

What started as trash talk and tariff threats ended in something far more dangerous for the U.S.:

Canadians discovered their economic power.

Without slogans or fanfare, they used their wallets as weapons. Vacations, grocery carts, retirement plans, investment portfolios — all became tools of economic pushback.

Trump tried to belittle Canada.
Canada answered with something he understands better than anything else:

Money walking away.

And now, billions of dollars later, one question hangs over Washington:

In a world where consumers can quietly redirect entire rivers of cash…
how many more countries could do what Canada just did?