Fear is fueling drop in Canadian visits, border researcher tells Bellingham council

Canadians are staying away from Whatcom County because they are seething over President Donald Trump’s insults and are worried about heavy-handed police action on this side of the border, a Western Washington University researcher said in a presentation outlining the local economic impact of political decisions made in Washington, D.C.

Laurie Trautman, director of the Border Policy Research Institute at WWU, told the Bellingham City Council that there’s been a fundamental change in the attitudes of Canadians toward Americans.

“Lately I’ve been hearing more and more Canadians talk about their reticence to cross the border out of fear over the border-crossing experience itself, and also out of fear for their safety in the United States,” Trautman said Dec. 8.

That’s a particularly strong feeling among Canadians of color – Asians, South Asians and Indigenous people, she said.

Trautman called the situation an “evolving scenario” that’s hurting local businesses and the government agencies that depend on sales taxes from hotel reservations and purchases made by Canadian tourists and shoppers.

Summertime border crossings from Canada through Blaine, Sumas and Lynden were about 29% below 2024 figures, according the previous Herald reporting.

Whatcom County is one of the three busiest U.S.-Canada land crossings, along with Detroit and Buffalo-Niagra Falls, and it has seen the largest percentage drop in traffic, Trautman said.

Trautman shared data indicating that U.S.-Canada crossings were up 10% in January – before President Trump took office and began making derogatory statements about Canadians, frequently referring to the nation as America’s 51st state.

Border crossings have declined every month since then, typically at levels between 30% and 50%.

“We’re getting decimated, our border communities in particular, by the lack of Canadian tourism,” Trautman told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. for a Nov. 25 analysis of the trade war.

Cross-border traffic had just started to recover from the COVID- 19 pandemic when Trump started a trade war with tariffs and made comments that “angered Canadians incredibly so,” Trautman told the Bellingham council. Not only are Canadians avoiding shopping trips to the U.S., they are boycotting U.S.-made products sold in Canada, she said.

Whatcom County exports $480 million in goods to Canada every year, mostly petroleum and agricultural products, and another $134 million in services, according to data from the Canadian government.

In the period of 2023-25, Canadian purchases in Bellingham totaled from about $117 million to $188 million.

A survey last summer by the Border Policy Research Institute and the Bellingham Regional Chamber of Commerce showed that most local businesses rely on Canadian customers and that more than half of them have suffered losses because of the decline in cross-border traffic.

There was a 7% drop in sales of general merchandise in the second quarter of 2025. Hotel occupancy was down 3%, and Canadian participation in events such as Ski to Sea dropped by 50%. Canadians have stopped buying gasoline in the U.S. because prices here are about equal to those in B.C. That’s resulted in a 20% drop in sales at convenience markets attached to gas stations.

Sales tax collections across Whatcom County were down 1.8% through the third quarter of 2025, Whatcom County Financial Director Randy Rydel told the County Council in a Dec. 9 report.

A survey headed by the Whatcom Council of Governments last summer showed that the main reason that Canadians were crossing the border was during a vacation or to visit family, and that consumer-driven trips dropped sharply.

Vacation and family visits made up 44% of the reasons for coming to the U.S., a figure that is up 16% since the last survey in 2018.

“We’re seeing this re-orientation by Canadian visitors away from trips that are economically oriented,” Trautman said. “The trends that we are seeing this year have the potential for longer-term implications than what we saw coming out of covid (when the border was closed), largely because what we’re seeing now is largely about a breach of trust between two nations that were friends and the anger that’s associated with the breach of trust, and about fear that is unlikely to abate any time soon.”

More data on sales and Canadian attitudes is coming early next year, Trautman said. Economic uncertainty in the U.S. is also a factor, but she said there likely will be a sustained period of lower Canadian visits and purchases.

“I spoke about economics a lot, but what I think is much more important here is the loss of trust with our Canadian neighbors and how that really impacts our quality of life in ways that can’t be measured – and I really do think will be difficult to repair,” Trautman said.