Canadians travelling to U.S. hits lowest rate since COVID amid Trump trade war: new data

Border crossings from Canada into the United States dropped by close to a million travellers in March compared to the same month last year, suggesting Canadians are avoiding the United States while U.S. President Donald Trump threatens tariffs and annexation.

It’s the lowest border traffic since COVID-19 restricted travel.

The latest data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection released late Monday says 4,105,516 travellers were logged crossing into the United States through its northern border with Canada last month by air and land, which is a drop of 864,844 travellers from March 2024 when 4,970,360 travellers were logged.

That’s a decrease of 17.4 per cent.

Cross border travel from Canada into the United States was soaring at the end of 2024, shaking off the reduced travel after the COVID-19 pandemic. Through October, November, December and January, there was more U.S.-bound travellers year-over-year since 2022, when pandemic travel restrictions ended.

Trump started taunting Canada and threatening vast economic and political changes in January, after his inauguration in his second term as president.

In February, close to 500,000 fewer travellers were logged crossing into the United States from Canada. There were 3,504,873 travellers counted that month, down from 3,965,547 during the same month last year. That’s 460,674 fewer crossing.

The new U.S. statistics reflect data coming from Canada.

Last week, Statistics Canada said Canadians made far fewer return trips to the United States in March compared to the previous March.

Statistics Canada says the number of Canadians returning from the U.S. by automobile was down almost 32 per cent compared to March 2024, the third consecutive month of year-over-year declines. Return trips from the U.S. by air were down 13.5 per cent in the same periods.

The number of Canadian residents returning from trips to the United States this past March was 1,453,842, down from 2,134,069 in March 2024.

In contrast, return trips to Canada from other countries had increased by almost nine per cent.

The reduced traffic flow cut both ways.

The number of U.S.-resident trips to Canada by automobile was 770,400, a decline of 10.6 per cent from the same month in 2024. This was the second consecutive month of year-over-year decline.

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