One year after Trump’s sovereignty threats, Canadians keep ‘elbows up’

For Lisa Mcbean, buying American-made snacks and traveling to the U.S. was second nature. That changed for the Ontario resident starting in early 2025.

Since then, the 54-year-old has checked if products are made in Canada before buying at the grocery store. Mcbean canceled multiple trips to the U.S. she had planned for concerts. Once-common jaunts across the border to shop are out of the picture.

The reason: U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated calls for Canada to become the 51st U.S. state. His tariffs on the country's exports added salt to the wound, she said.

"Enough is enough," Mcbean told CNBC. "Why do we have to make you great again at our expense?"

Large-scale boycott

Mcbean's rejection is part of a wider boycott by Canadians incensed at Trump's levies and sovereignty claims. What was initially an unusual swell of Canadian patriotism a year ago has evolved into a new social and economic order for the country of 41 million.

The shift has affected everything from what brands Canadians buy to where they vacation to how they vote. There are economic implications on both sides of the border that policymakers are taking into account. Polling suggests the altered behavior won't change anytime soon.

"Canadians have remained steadfast," said Steve Mossop, executive vice president at Leger, a Montreal-based polling service. "The biggest surprise is how adamant Canadians are about not supporting the USA in any shape or fashion."

Data shows Canadians continue spending with their "elbows up" — a hockey term that's become a tagline for resistance to American pressure.

Thin ice

Canada was the second-largest U.S. trade partner in 2025, the Census Bureau reported. But economists warn that the old relationship is skating on thin ice. Excluding the pandemic, the percentage of Canada's imports coming from the U.S. hit record lows last year.

"We've always seen the U.S. as a very strong and reliable ally," said Michael Devereux, an economics professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. "That has really been undermined in the last year."

Canadians began moving their food purchases away from the U.S. starting in early 2025, a data analysis released last month from the Bank of Canada found. Domestic brands gained wallet share as retailers and liquor stores encouraged shoppers to instead buy Canadian.

Central bank researchers called this a structural change in the national economy stemming directly from heightened trade tensions. The transformation could have impacts on Canada's inflation and the makeup of its gross domestic product, they said.

Already, the Bank of Canada began asking consumers last year about purchases of U.S. goods and U.S. travel spending in its flagship consumer survey.

More than three out of every five Canadians said they avoided purchasing U.S.-made alcohol or produce, according to a January poll of more than 2,600 consumers by Leger, the largest Canadian-owned market research and analytics firm. More than half said they tried not to buy from U.S.-based retailers or websites.

Most Canadians said they would continue to avoid American goods and services over the next six months, Leger found.

Name change

At Great American Backrub locations in Toronto, President Nazir Lalani put up signs emphasizing the chain's Canadian ownership. After using the name for a quarter century, Lalani is considering dropping the U.S. affiliation.

At the turn of the century, "anything American was very popular in Canada. It had a lot of power behind it," Lalani said. "Now, it's very different."

Canadian anger stems from Trump's bravado that the country could be pushed into becoming part of America through "economic force." Trump repeatedly referred to the Canadian prime minister as a "governor" and slapped tariffs on its exports.

"The Administration will continue to safeguard American interests by leveraging America's economic might," a White House official said in a written statement to CNBC. More than a fifth of Canada's economy depends on exports to the U.S. and a majority of the population lives within 100 miles of the border, the official noted.

Prime Minister Mark Carney's electoral victory last year was widely seen as a referendum on Trump's bluster over Canadian sovereignty. Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January widely interpreted as a rebuke of U.S. policy. The same month, Canada and China reached a preliminary trade agreement.

More recently, Carney this week wrapped up a global tour where he met international leaders and strengthened trade alliances. Notably, he skipped the U.S.

'Bye America'

Inhabitants of the Great White North are not only aiming to "buy Canada." They're also saying "bye America."

Canadian return trips from the U.S. by air plunged almost 18% in the year through January, the Canadian government found. Airlines plan to fly 11% fewer seats from Canada to popular snowbird destinations in Arizona and Florida this year, according to flight data from aviation data provider Cirium.

Car crossings by Canadians from the U.S. tumbled nearly 27% year-over-year in January. Canadians are spending more on domestic travel, said Nathan Janzen, assistant chief economist at the Royal Bank of Canada.

In Las Vegas, Caesars and MGM executives acknowledged fewer visits from Canada on calls with analysts last year. Less tourist traffic hurt some retailers' sales in Maine and North Dakota, the U.S. Federal Reserve said in its Beige Book.

Canadian bookings at U.S. mountain destinations tracked by Inntopia Business Intelligence sank more than 45% in January 2026 from the same month a year ago.

At Jay Peak in northern Vermont, there's a notable absence of Canadian school trips that previously helped fill the 3,800-foot mountain and associated water park, said General Manager Steve Wright. Canadian hockey teams skipped tournaments held at the resort's indoor rink.

Canadians accounted for roughly 5% of attendees at Folk Alliance International's industry conference in New Orleans in January, down from upwards of 17% in other years. Several Canadian companies opted not to sponsor the folk music-focused convention this year.

"We completely understand why they're choosing not to come into the U.S.," said Jennifer Roe, executive director of the Kansas City-based nonprofit.

Until recently, Canadians had been some of the biggest foreign buyers of U.S. real estate, according to the National Association of Realtors. But almost 18% fewer Canadian users viewed U.S. real estate listings in February than in the same month a year ago, according to Redfin.

'Time out'

Deborah Marling, an Ontario-based office manager, sold her second home in Sarasota, Florida, last year. Since then, she's increased domestic travel and vacationed in Costa Rica rather than heading to America's sunbelt. While Marling typically visits her brother in Atlanta every spring, this year she's expecting him to head north instead.

"People have always thought of the relationship with the United States as a cousin thing or a friendship," Marling said. "It kind of feels like we're on a 'time out' right now."

Canadians are closely watching the outcome of the renegotiated Canada, United States, Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) free-trade agreement taking place this year, and will monitor November's U.S. midterm elections to see if a change in Congressional leadership might limit Trump's power.

Canadians told CNBC that their outrage is aimed at the U.S. federal government, not the average American. Still, their fury is palpable: The percentage of Canadians in 2025 with an "unfavorable" view of the U.S. hit its highest level since the Pew Research Center began asking the question in 2002.

Yet Canadians have reason to hope for a return to warmer economic relations. Canadian companies still seek out deep U.S. financial markets, and try to draw its enormous consumer market. Canada has the ninth largest economy in the world; America's is No. 1.

"We need each other," said Chris Agro, a 46-year-old Canadian who works in manufacturing. "We're still our closest neighbors. That's never going to change."

But others, like Mcbean of Ontario, don't see the relationship going back to the way it was.

"The damage has already been done," Mcbean said. "It is no longer a boycott. It's a change. It's a divorce."

— CNBC's Leslie Josephs contributed to this report.