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U.S. President Donald Trump is obsessed with trade deficits. But he may have just wiped out one of the United States' biggest trade surpluses with Canada, in travel services. In June and July, more American residents crossed into this country than Canadian residents who were returning from travel to the U.S. – a sharp reversal after years where the flow of travellers heading south was larger, according to preliminary international arrivals data released by Statistics Canada. The recent shift is the first time that American visitors to Canada outnumbered Canadian visitors to the U.S. since tourism began to normalize from pandemic lockdowns. Prior to 2020, other cross-border travel data published by Statscan shows more Canadians headed south each month since at least 2010. The about-face is the result of Canadians' seven-month long travel boycott of the U.S., which Mr. Trump sparked with his 51st-state rhetoric and tariffs. Some Canadians are also fearful of being detained at the border, following news reports of tourists being arrested. The boycott is leaving its mark. In July, the number of Canadian residents returning from the U.S. via automobile fell by 36.9 per cent compared to the same month last year, with the travel protest picking up speed again after easing in June, according to Statscan. The number of Canadian residents returning by air travel was also down by 25.8 per cent. The Trump slump, as the decline in foreign travel to the U.S. has come to be known, is on full display in tourist-dependent cities like Las Vegas. In June, Air Canada and WestJet carried a combined 32 per cent fewer passengers from Canada to Las Vegas, compared to the same month last year, according to the city's Harry Reid International airport. Canadians have long travelled to the U.S. in much larger numbers than American visits to Canada, so the change in habits could help offset some of the damage caused by Mr. Trump's tariffs on Canadian goods, said Julian Karaguesian, a former adviser to the Department of Finance and a visiting economics lecturer at McGill University. 'Not in a sense that it's boosting our prosperity greatly, but we're keeping more of our national income at home,' he said. 'If that trend continues it should be a positive impulse to our GDP.' Mr. Trump has repeatedly railed against the U.S. trade deficit with Canada when it comes to the flow of goods. However, the U.S. has run an annual trade surplus with Canada in services since at least 1990, according to Statscan, driven mostly by travel. The travel services surplus was a reflection of the larger number of Canadians going to the U.S. and spending more than Americans do during their visits to Canada. The travel boycotts by Canadians and those from other countries are quickly eroding the U.S. travel services surplus, said Dean Baker, senior economist at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. 'I don't know if Trump doesn't understand services or doesn't care, but it is a very big and rapidly growing part of our trade and it's likely to go into reverse with these current policies,' he said. The number of U.S. residents entering Canada by vehicle in July also declined, but by a much smaller 7.4 per cent from the year before, while air travel by northbound Americans was mostly unchanged from last year. If the boycotts continue and the U.S. travel services surplus dwindles to a deficit, Mr. Karaguesian warned the Trump administration may eventually take notice. 'This is good for us economically as long as it lasts, but it could eventually put us back in the crosshairs,' he said. However, the options for Mr. Trump to retaliate against Canadians for boycotting the U.S. are not obvious. The President could 'try to scare Americans into not coming to Canada' with travel warnings, Mr. Karaguesian said. But to 'pump their travel surplus back up,' the U.S. would not only have to convince Canadians to overcome their anger with Mr. Trump, but 'advertise that the border is easy to cross.' That, of course, would go against Mr. Trump's insistence that the border needs to be tightened to stop the flow of fentanyl entering the U.S., which is his justification for the 35-per-cent tariff on all Canadian goods not compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.
