A year and a half ago, when the full horror of Donald Trump’s dismantling of America was just a White House work order, the prospect of Canadians not visiting the United States wasn’t even a question. Not go to New York for the weekend? Not spend a week hiking the Appalachian Trail? It never entered our minds that we wouldn’t go to America as an act of political protest.
Indeed, not only is the U.S./Canada border the “longest undefended border in the world,” in America’s entire 250 year history Canadians have never had a reason not to set foot in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Except in 1814 when we burned down The White House. But technically, we weren’t a nation until 1867, so it doesn’t really count.
Then in February of last year, the U.S. imposed tariffs on Canada. Mark Carney urged us to get our “Elbows Up” and lots of Canadians vowed not to travel to the U.S. until Trump changed his mind on tariffs (Trump change his mind? We were Bambis in the forest back then.)
A lot of us took a vow of abstinence by not travelling to the lair of Satan, or drinking his liquor either. Over the course of last year, some of us wavered in our resolve (Jean and I paddled down the Colorado for a week with American friends. But we’d booked it in 2024!) And this year we had a three-hour layover in Houston on our flight home from Mexico. I must confess I was tempted to break the pact with myself again until…well, until last Friday night around 11:57 p.m., when our Prime Minister told Mr. Trump “We’re done here.”
So, no visits to America or American booze ever ever again. And this time I mean it.
Actually, abstaining from America has had a remarkable effect already:
· Canada’s tourism boycott cost America USD $4.5 billion in 2025, and that decline is accelerating this year. In border states, crossings are down 30% to 50%. New York saw a 21% drop, over 3 million fewer visits, and Vermont is down by 40%.
· The same with alcohol: in Ontario alone CAD $965 million in annual U.S. sales were wiped out. Our own domestic producers surged into the gap: sales of Ontario-made alcohol rose by $500 million, or 22%. Craft beverages were up 35%, VQA Ontario wines up 79%, and deluxe Canadian whiskey, up 94%.
Tens of thousands of lost American jobs is nothing to gloat over. Our fight is not with Americans, but with their government. Americans are walking into the mid-terms in November with their prices rising, their unemployment rising, their deficit rising and their tempers rising. Anything Canadians can do to accelerate that rise will improve the chances of Democrats winning the Senate and Congress.
But what galls me the most about Trump’s latest negotiating tactics is not their sophistication, but their mob-like obviousness. Let’s call it the Corleone close. It comes straight out of The Godfather where Don Vito Corleone settles into his chair, strokes the cat, and murmurs that he’s going to make you an offer you can’t refuse. The deal is done, the wine is poured, hands are shaken – and then, almost as an afterthought, comes the ask: one small favor. And suddenly you’ve signed away something you never meant to give.
Trump used it just last month. The deal was done on the new Gordie Howe Bridge, whose USD $4.7 billion construction bill was paid entirely by Canada. The ribbon was ready to be cut when the President suddenly stepped in and threatened to block the opening unless Washington was “fully compensated” and handed “at least one half of this asset” – on behalf, it emerged, of the Moroun family, generous campaign donors who happen to own the aging Ambassador Bridge next door, whose toll monopoly the Gordie Howe would break. A deal was struck: the U.S. now collects half the net tolls for fifteen years – a sum Ottawa concedes will amount to very little, since Canada must first repay itself over roughly fifty years. Suddenly Canada was sharing the revenues of a bridge it had wholly financed the day before.
It’s as if you’re driving back into Canada on that same Gordie Howe Bridge. You arrive at the Canada Border Services booth. Like all good Canadians, you declare your goods, produce your passports and confirm that the case of Tim Hortons Original Blend in the trunk is for your personal consumption. The officer nods and lifts the barrier.
And then, from the little window, comes a voice: “One small thing, sir. About that double-double in your cupholder?… We’re going to need half.”
Canadians may be slow to anger, but we’re not slow to learn. Last year, we were naïve about Mr. Trump and his henchpeople. No more.
Stephen Marche’s essay in the New York Times this week said it all. His decade of working in America taught him the fundamental difference between Canadians and Americans. “For Americans, the capacity to project power, the ability to make things happen, to win, are the primary virtues. In Canada, the defining virtue is toughness, the capacity to endure.”
So now, Canadians are being asked to fall back on what happens to be our great strength.
Said Marche: “It’s funny to wake up relieved that you’re about to take a beating. We will not go along to get along.”
“The American president clearly did not know whom he was dealing with. He is following in the grand tradition of American leaders starting wars with people they don’t understand, then wondering what went wrong.”
This time Canada’s reaction was different: Carney saw Trump coming; Trump didn’t see Carney leaving.
Meanwhile…..
0. This just in – Canada’s list of tariffs on American imports. And a tribute to Dolly Parton’s hair and her amazing life.
1. Dear Prince Harry: You owe us £9,544,355 by 4pm on August 28. And that’s just a down payment in his lawsuit against The Daily Mail which he and fellow claimants Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley lost. Here’s the judgement.
2. Statesmen behaving strangely, again — again. Paul Krugman finds a new level of Trumpian evil; and the National Guard, at a cost of USD $1.7 billion, fails to reduce urban crime; at home, The Tyee wonders whether Stephen Harper should replace Pierre Poilievre; and who was texting the British Prime Minister? Finally, here’s where to sign the petition to recall U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, and to fire FIFA president Gianni Infantino.
3. Orchestras in the pit. The Boston Symphony’s musicians have authorized the first potential strike in the orchestra’s 145‑year history; Orlando Alonso goes deeper into the ongoing crisis at the BSO and asks who the orchestra actually thinks it is; for a palate cleanser, medieval punk in medieval style; text as music — turn any sentence into a score; and finally, an ambient‑sound generator for the flow state you’re meant to be in.
4. The Toronto file. I’m still happy to live on Bloor Street; Be Giant proposes we turn closed churches into affordable housing; MaRS’s new Vital Signs report says the health‑tech sector has a next big problem; the Rotman School’s GATE annual report is out; and Sam Kahn asks the big one: is the city finished? Not just Toronto, but every city.
5. Canada, examined. What makes Canada different (spoiler: more than we credit ourselves for); the ever‑buoyant Australians declare King Carney has activated Kong Mode; a Canadian pyrosociologist explains how our wildfires got so bad and what “hidden tornadoes” have to do with it; Fogo Island’s Shorefast releases its 2025 Impact Report, still the gold standard for what a small place can do; and why we love Mexicans, just when America can’t decide.
6. Words and writers. David Rothberg reminds us that Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance sits 49th on The Guardian’s list of the greatest novels ever, one spot behind Kafka; Tim Harford says explain it to me like I’m ten; the Literary Review profiles a professional virgin, as time goes by; and Lapham’s Quarterly introduces you to the worst poet in the English language.
7. Fiction, and what it does to you. How to read a novel and what reading fiction actually does for us; Reading Maps draws fictional worlds onto real ones, starting with the Life of Pi; the Encyclopedia of Concise Concepts by Women Philosophers is exactly what it says; and Octopus Yarn posts a taxonomy so useful you’ll flinch, but only if you are a type of guy.
8. Odd, odder, oddest. File one under Odd; and one under Odder; Laura Kamph, who takes junk and makes it useful, belongs somewhere on the same shelf; and if you’re still hungry, how did I not know this? — a small, perfect nichey thing.
9. Body, brain, and the long game. The Lancet on how to end predictable heat‑related deaths in older adults; Medscape on the five steps to earlier heart‑failure detection; a two‑second look at what kills you at what age; a small marvel called open‑heart surgery that will make your knees weak; why women can’t get ahead in pro sports; and Ellen Bass, via The Marginalian, on how to bear your desolations.
10. Big tech, bigger claims. Why does AI lie, cheat and steal? — the New York Times asks nicely; OpenAI concedes, in its own house style, that even AI thinks AI is moving too fast. Plus AI and your health, one minute, worth the watch; CNN on why business class is often empty; and a weird search‑and‑rescue concept drone.
11. Money, and where it goes. Visual Capitalist on how inflation has eroded $100 since 2019, by country; the NY Times on how America’s rich do first dates; the Daily on what happens when private equity comes for your favourite team; Data4Democracy on hooking oldsters with spam; and a mild antidote, YNAB, the household budgeting app people won’t shut up about, in a good way.
12. Sport and speed. Josh Kerr’s record mile, and the version people are quoting; a Utah cottage industry of unusual shoe sizes; Sarah Williams’ Tough Girl Podcast, whose guests are all, well, tough girls; a small, beautiful piece of creativity called broadcasting an out; and, for context, Adventure Uncovered’s argument that we should stop believing the outdoors is free.
Guaranteed 100% written by Bob Ramsay, human.