Surrey, B.C. resident Kay Pearl watched President Donald Trump’s inauguration address from her living room, 10 minutes from the Pacific Highway border crossing, on January 20.
The next morning, she got up early and crossed the border to be at Banner Bank in Blaine by the time it opened at 9 a.m. She withdrew everything she had before closing the bank account she opened more than two decades ago.
When the teller asked for the reason, she told him, “Trump. Your government is threatening my government, and I don’t feel safe here anymore.” Then she watched as the teller wrote, “Account not needed anymore.”
“I feel like the U.S. has declared war on Canada and the only way I can help is to keep my dollars here,” Pearl said.
Pearl is among a growing number of Canadians who have pledged to not travel into the U.S. after Trump started a trade war against the country and continues talks of Canada becoming a 51st state. “Buy Canadian” campaigns emerged in early February, after Trump’s tariffs were originally expected to go into effect and have gained momentum as more Canadian consumers look to keep their dollars in their country.
In February 2025, 544,000 cars traveled into Washington from B.C., 136,000 fewer than the 680,000 cars that traveled into the state in February 2024, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
Pearl said neither she nor her friends are planning to travel to the U.S. or purchase American products anytime soon. They canceled their Alaska cruise, have asked U.S. relatives to travel to them, are booking flights without stops in the U.S. and one friend is now trying to sell her Birch Bay home, Pearl said.
Surrey resident Amy Wasney, who lives one block from 0 Avenue near Peace Arch Historical State Park, said she has no plans to visit the U.S. anytime soon, despite it being a short walk from her front door. After Trump began threatening tariffs and annexing Canada, Wasney said she began feeling unsafe to travel to the U.S., fearing political unrest and rising political tension. She has also noticed changes at the border, such as a Black Hawk helicopter that began flying over the border.
Wasney said her family canceled its Fourth of July trip to visit relatives in Kentucky, which would have been their first time in the state. Wasney’s decision to withhold U.S. travel also came from not feeling that the U.S. government is respecting Canada.
“We don’t harbor any resentment or hard feelings to the American people,” Wasney said. “We want to continue the relationship we’ve always had. The Peace Arch monument is right in my front yard, and it stands for never allowing the borders to close and that we have a friendly relationship.”
(The Northern Light requested the perspective of Surrey and White Rock residents to include in this article through a community Facebook group. As of press time, there were nearly 400 comments on the post from Canadians sharing their varying opinions on crossing the U.S. border and buying American products.)
City of Blaine officials are scrambling to make sense of the rapid changes for the city, which have the potential to significantly lower the sales tax revenue, an important funding source that pays for everyday city operations.
“I have a feeling this will be on par with the pandemic,” councilmember Sonia Hurt said during the last city council meeting. “It will have just as dramatic of an effect.”
The impacts are already being felt for Blaine mailbox stores and other Blaine businesses that heavily cater to Canadians.
Ship49 manager Josie Frodert said the parcel store, which overlooks the Pacific Highway border crossing, began seeing fewer customers about two weeks ago. Business has plummeted 60 percent from this time last year, meaning Frodert now spends the day reading murder mysteries instead of helping customers lining out the door. She’s also become selective about the days she keeps the lights and heat on.
“It’s really sad because we depend on Canadians,” Frodert said. “We just provide a legal U.S. address for them to get their mail and parcels.”
Ship49 opened in 2022 after the previous parcel store at its location closed during the pandemic.
Frodert said her regulars aren’t just customers but are family. When Frodert received a call that her sister, Jessica, was in a near-fatal car crash last year, her Canadian customers were the ones who refused to leave her side until her boyfriend arrived.
“The customers got me through the worst time of my life,” Frodert said. “They’re just amazing. We’ve made our own little family here.”
Travis Wyatt, warehouse manager at Mail to Border, said business so far this year has been in line with the beginning of the pandemic. “It’s only gotten worse as of March,” he said.
Canadian customers, who make up nearly the entire business, have either decided to not come to the U.S. or they are ordering fewer packages, Wyatt said. The packages they are ordering are either not subject to tariffs or are items that can’t be shipped into Canada, such as car parts and vitamins. Confusion about the tariffs also dissuades Canadian customers, Wyatt said.
Mike Hill, owner of Hill’s Chevron in downtown Blaine, said business has decreased about 45 percent at his gas station, where Canadians make up about 75 percent of people at the pumps. Business started dipping near the beginning of February and has only fallen further, he said.
Hill said he’s still paying for the $1 million he lost during the pandemic, and if trends continue, this impact would be worse.
“I don’t know how some people will hang on when your bills don’t change and you have no money coming in,” Hill said.
David Cook, president and co-owner of The Markets LLC, which owns IGA Market in Blaine and The Market at Birch Bay, said business has been down about 15 percent at both grocery stores. He said the company is holding off on its remodel of The Market at Birch Bay and has decided to not replace departing employees to reduce the company’s expenses.
However, Cook said the indirect impact, such as tax revenue to local governments, concerns him more.
“I’m more hopeful that this is a very short blip, and we can get back to our regular rhythm of business once cooler heads prevail on this, but right now it’s inflamed,” Cook said.
Railway Cafe owners Vicka and Rodney Haywood said in late February that they had 30 percent fewer sales compared to the previous February. At the time, they didn’t know how much of an impact that tariffs had versus it being offseason and the Canadian dollar being lower.
Blaine Visitor Information Center manager Carroll Solomon said she’s noticed fewer Canadian license plates downtown, though she also noted the winter is typically a slow season.
Other businesses, such as L&L Bakery, have said they’ve noticed fewer Canadians but have a steady number of local residents visiting the shop.
While momentum is growing in Canada to shop local, some Canadians are still sticking to their regular shopping patterns across the border. Surrey resident Charles Kwok said he will continue to shop in the U.S. if he can purchase products for cheaper, such as gas, which saves him $20 CAD per tank, even with the weak Canadian dollar. Kwok said he will also continue to visit his timeshare in Florida biannually.
“I refuse to play into this Canadian pride thing others are having just because they hate Trump,” Kwok said.
Kwok said he understands why the Trump administration is deploying the tariffs to force Canada and Mexico to tighten their borders to uncontrolled immigration, and as a way to put economic pressure against China.
“Now with less Canadians traveling to the states because of this kerfuffle, I will enjoy the Disney and Universal Parks even more because it will be way less crowded,” Kwok said. “In conclusion, this whole tariff thing doesn’t affect me much.”
Hill, at Hill’s Chevron, said he hopes the tensions between the U.S. and Canada won’t permanently wreck the countries’ longstanding friendship.
As for Pearl, in Surrey, she said she wanted Blaine residents to know she was sad she couldn’t go to the U.S. anymore – something to which she had never given a second thought. But now, she said she feels like she’s betraying her country if she economically supports the U.S.
“We don’t understand how this could happen in the world’s greatest democracy,” Pearl said. “There’s a real lack of trust because even if things go back to the way they were, the ease at which everything was stripped away was just shocking.”
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