Last week, the head of Brand USA, the agency tasked with promoting the United States as a tourism destination, had the unenviable task of traveling to Canada to convince our neighbors to the north to come back and vacation in the United States.
“We’re hurting,” Chris Heywood, Brand USA communications officer, told the Canadian travel website Open Jaw, during his visit. “We need the Canadians. We’re hurting without the Canadian business.”
Inbound travel from all countries to the United States was down 5.4 percent from January through November of 2025, according to the US Commerce Department’s National Travel and Tourism Office. But it’s Canadians who have been staying away in the largest numbers. In November 2025 alone, the number of Canadians taking trips to the United States was down nearly 24 percent over the previous year.
But in what has become a recurring problem for US tourism, a few days after Heywood traveled to advocate for US tourism, President Trump quickly extinguished any embers of goodwill.
Trump has demanded that Canada “share authority” and ownership of a new bridge connecting the two countries. The Gordie Howe International Bridge, connecting Ontario to Michigan, will not open until the Canadian government “treats the United States with the fairness and respect that we deserve,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Canada footed the entire $4.7 billion bill for the bridge.
“With all that we’ve given them, we should, perhaps, own at least one half of this asset,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Currently, the bridge is jointly owned by Canada and Michigan. Trump has threatened to block the opening of the bridge, which is near completion.
The bridge is the latest in a string of insults to Canada since Trump came into office last year. Trump began his second term by dismissing Canada as the 51st state and suggesting it be annexed to the United States. As he was dismissing the country, he threatened new tariffs. As a result of the rhetoric, the American tourism industry lost billions in revenue last year. Canada is the largest inbound tourism market to the United States.
It’s looking as if 2026 will see a continued slump in Canadian visitors. According to a study by the Canadian travel insurance company Blue Cross, 76 percent of Canadians say they are less likely to visit the United States in 2026. Those skipping travel to the US cite tariffs, the weak exchange rate, crime, and potential border-crossing hassles as among their chief reasons for snubbing the United States.
Bringing Canadian tourists back to the United States is about to get even more challenging, as Canadian airlines continue to slash U.S. routes. Montreal-based leisure airline Air Transat announced this week that it will cease all US flights by June. At the start of last year, the airline operated nine routes to the United States.
Canada’s WestJet has axed 16 routes to the US from its summer schedule.
“We saw a notable decline in transborder travel demand throughout 2025,” Julia Kaiser, media relations adviser for WestJet told Global News. “As a result, we made timely decisions to modify our network to stay aligned with where Canadians want to go.”
Among the canceled WestJet routes are flights from Boston to Edmonton and Boston to Vancouver.
There is hope in the tourism sector that events such as the FIFA World Cup and the United States semiquincentennial will help boost international tourism. However, Canada is also hosting World Cup games, and as a country that is still boycotting US products, it seems unlikely that a surge of Make America Great Again-style patriotism will find an audience there.
Christopher Muther can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @Chris_Muther and Instagram @chris_muther.
