Evelyn Reynolds

President Donald Trump’s controversial plans for tariffs and comments about Canada becoming a state has angered the country’s consumers and politicians.
Canada has long been a key ally and trade partner for the U.S., with residents shopping American brands and flocking south of the border for vacations.

A “Shop Canadian” sign is seen at the entrance of a supermarket in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, March 4, 2025. 
Liang Seng | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images

Canadians are swapping their friendly auras for a fierce sense of nationalism amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s attacks on the country’s trade and sovereignty.
Trump’s mostly delayed plans for 25% tariffs on Canadian goods and his calls for the country to become an American state has spurned citizens of the U.S.’s northern neighbor and key trade partner. As a result, Canadians have rejected American imports and issued other economic punishments in an unusual show of patriotism.

“It really feels for most Canadians like we’ve been backstabbed, that the person that we trusted the most is now sort of turning on us and attacking us for no apparent reason,” said Joel Bilt, an economics professor focused on international trade at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. “That has really unified people.”
Grocery stores have encouraged visitors to “shop Canadian” with signs and special labels in aisles alerting them to which products were made domestically. A popular Facebook group focused on buying Canadian-made goods first reported on by NBC News has seen its membership more than double since early February as the on-again-off-again tariff policy played out.

A “Shop Canadian” sign is seen at the entrance of a supermarket in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, March 4, 2025. 
Liang Seng | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images

More than 60% of Canadians reported buying fewer American products when shopping either in store or online, according to a survey from market research firm Leger of more than 1,500 residents conducted between March 7 and March 10. Just over seven out of 10 said they upped their purchases of goods made within the country, which has the ninth largest economy in the world.
The Liquor Control Board of Ontario went even further, barring its members from ordering American alcohol. Because the LCBO sells upwards of $1 billion in American liquor each year, the move has raised alarm for U.S.-based spirit makers like Jack Daniel’s parent Brown-Forman.
“That’s worse than a tariff,” said Lawson Whiting, chief executive of Brown-Forman, on the Kentucky-based company’s earnings call this month. “It’s literally taking your sales away.”

Empty shelves remain with signs ”Buy Canadian Instead” after the top five U.S. liquor brands were removed from sale at a B.C. Liquor Store, as part of a response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canadian goods, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, February 2, 2025. 
Chris Helgren | Reuters

Ontario also said it would implement a 25% surcharge on electricity exported to Michigan, Minnesota and New York. But Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that he would temporarily halt this tax after U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick agreed to restart negotiations.
Trump initially responded by calling to raise tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50%, but the White House told CNBC that he backed down following the conversation between Lutnick and Ford.
Still, Trump’s now-withdrawn plan for higher taxes on the metals put the United Steelworkers union — which represents about 850,000 people in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean — on alert. USW International President David McCall said in a March 11 statement that the North American arms of the international trade organization would “fight together” against the proposed levies, which he said threatens jobs on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border.

A ‘pushback’

Even as the tariff negotiations remain in flux, travel to the U.S. is already taking a hit. Return trips by Canadians from the U.S. by vehicle tumbled around 23% in February from the same month a year ago, according to government statistics.

Government data also showed the number of Canadians flying back into the country from international locations declined in February from a year ago, signaling a pullback in tourism abroad. That comes as Air Canada announced plans to cut capacity to warm U.S. locations like Florida, Arizona and Nevada beginning this month.
Trump’s threats have prompted some cancellations to the Wildwoods in New Jersey, a popular beach destination for travelers from places like Montreal and Quebec, according to Ben Rose, marketing and public relations director at the Greater Wildwoods Tourism Authority. But he said these rescissions haven’t been as widespread as initially expected. Canadians are also weighing concerns around the exchange rate, he added.

Air Canada planes are seen at the gates at Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Dorval, Quebec, Canada on April 2, 2024. 
Daniel Slim | Afp | Getty Images

At consumer travel shows in Toronto and Montreal, the authority received some comments from potential Canadian travelers about how Trump’s plan for levies has deterred vacationing in America. Rose said his team reminds uneasy Canadians that it has been a welcoming destination for them over several decades and provides unique value as a location within driving distance.
“Some of the pushback we’ve been getting is that: ‘You know we love Americans, and we know they love us, but we’ll see you in four years,'” Rose said. “They can’t go along with the administration.”

Political, cultural efforts

Canadians’ stance against Trump’s policies has spilled into culture and media as the issue captured the country’s interest.
Canadians booed the U.S. national anthem before major-league sporting games against American teams. During an appearance on Saturday Night Live this month, Canadian celebrity Mike Myers donned a shirt that reads “Canada is not for sale” alongside the country’s red-and-white flag.

(l-r) Musical guest Tate McRae, host Shane Gillis, and special guest Mike Myers during Goodnights & Credits on Saturday, March 1, 2025.
Will Heath | NBCUniversal | Getty Images

Tariffs have become a focal point of Canada’s government, which saw ex-central banker Mark Carney clinch the prime minister title this month. Carney succeeds Justin Trudeau, who Trump had begun referring to as “governor” in reference to his hopes of making Canada a U.S. state.
The British Columbia government and its power operator said they would exclude Tesla products from certain green-energy rebates as of March 12, an action done to give “preference” to Canadian-made alternatives. Tesla is run by CEO Elon Musk, who has come under fire from critics for his leadership of Trump’s controversial government efficiency initiative.
Waterloo’s Bilt said Canadians’ anger is focused mainly on Trump rather than Americans at large, meaning personal relationships between citizens of each country likely wouldn’t be frayed as a result. However, he said American businesses should expect Canadians — once known as a laid-back, polite group that didn’t think twice about shopping U.S. brands or vacationing south of its border — to rebuff them until Trump backs down.
“It really has elicited the kind of response that I have never seen before,” Bilt said. “Canadians are not fundamentally nationalistic, but this really sort of hit something strong at the core of the average Canadian.”
— NBC News and CNBC’s Dan Mangan and Laya Neelakandan contributed to this report.
Disclosure: Saturday Night Live is part of NBCUniversal, which also owns CNBC. More

President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian products, along with the escalating trade war and rhetoric between the two nations, is starting to squeeze some small businesses in Vermont.
Concerns for those small businesses include a decline in merchandise shipments to Canadian customers, a drop off in Canadian tourism and higher prices from imported products.
“I would rather take the position of being proactive and not just thinking about absorbing the problem,” said Bill Butler, a co-owner of Artisans Hand Craft Gallery in Montpelier.

Ryan Christiansen, president and head distiller at Caledonia Spirits, giving a tour in Montpelier, VT.
Courtesy: Ryan Christianse | Caledonia Spirits

President Donald Trump’s tariff rhetoric against Canada has only started to heat up, but Vermont’s small businesses are already feeling some pain.
A shipment of spirits, ordered by the Société des alcools du Québec – an entity that’s responsible for the trade of alcoholic beverages in the province – has been sitting on a shipping dock at Montpelier-based Barr Hill by Caledonia Spirits for about a month.

The SAQ called off the order shortly after Trump announced the tariffs against Canada in February, according to Ryan Christiansen, president and head distiller at Caledonia Spirits.
“Customers are ready to buy, and we are in the peak of slow season – it’s an annual cycle for us, and we were looking forward to shipping the order. Now, it’s sitting on the dock,” he said. “To have this hit our business in the slow month of February? We missed our financial plan in February because of this.”

Exports at Caledonia Spirits in Montpelier, VT.
Courtesy: Ryan Christiansen | Caledonia Spirits

Vermont has a special relationship with Canada, as the Green Mountain State exports $680 million in goods to the U.S.’s northern neighbor annually, according to data compiled by Connect2Canada. Vermont imports more than $2.6 billion in goods from Canada each year, with electricity and fuel oil among the top imported goods.
Because of the state’s close business ties to Canada and their shared borders, small businesses in Vermont began seeing some fallout as early as February – when Trump first announced a round of 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, triggering 25% retaliatory levies from then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. At the time, Ontario also said it would pull American alcohol products from its shelves.
Ultimately, Trump granted a reprieve on Canadian and Mexican goods covered by the North American trade agreement USMCA until April 2. However, many products are still subject to the duties.

“We worked really hard to maintain this relationship with the Canadian government,” Christiansen said. “How do I get them to buy as much as the Canadian customer wanted to buy? Even if the tariffs go away, I think it’s overly optimistic that this order gets resubmitted.”
Tourism worries
It didn’t take long for Steve Wright, president and general manager of Jay Peak Resort, which is about 10 miles from the Canadian border, to begin seeing the impact of the rhetoric around tariffs.
He noted that spending from Canadian tourists showed signs of softening particularly in two key weeks: Quebec break week, which ran from March 3 to March 8, and Ontario break week, which kicked off on March 10.
Though Canadian visitors generally account for about half of the resort’s market, they make up virtually all of it during that two-week stretch, Wright said.

Arrows pointing outwards

People ski at Jay Peak in Jay, VT.
Courtesy: Patrick Coyle, Darla Mercado | CNBC

“The Quebec break week sold really well, and we had great conditions, but what was missing was the day market,” he said. “We did not get the day traffic we usually see from Montreal, that part of the market softened up.”
Tariff rhetoric has only been the latest pressure point for Jay Peak. The resort’s manager also pointed to the reduction in hours of operation for the nearby North Troy, VT border crossing. It went from 24 hours a day to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in January.
To accommodate its Canadian clientele over the past two decades, Jay Peak has been offering at-par options for these tourists on non-margin products. “Say a lift ticket is $100, you can give us C$100,” Wright said. “That has insulated the business a little bit.”
“They have an affinity for Jay Peak; they have been coming here for a generation, but there is a point where they will decide to stay home despite their love of the place,” he added.
In Montpelier, which is a roughly two-to-three-hour drive from Montreal, worries about tourist traffic are already bubbling among small businesses. This corner of the state tends to see weekend visitors from up north, particularly in the temperate summer and fall seasons.
Bill Butler, a co-owner of Artisans Hand Craft Gallery, has been in talks with fellow entrepreneurs in downtown Montpelier to propose promotional deals for Canadian visitors to keep the foot traffic coming.
“My idea is to have something like ‘Canada Days,'” he said. “We’d have a deal for Canadians who want to come down, have a little tour of the city and go from place to place, and get a free beer or coffee.”
“I would rather take the position of being proactive and not just thinking about absorbing the problem,” Butler said. “We have a great relationship with Canada, and we see a lot of Canadians in the gallery.”
The price of imported goods
For Sam Guy, owner of Guy’s Farm & Yard in Morrisville, tariffs are raising concerns over higher prices for certain products.
Wood shavings, wood pellets and peat moss sold at the local chain store all come from Canada, while animal feed – though made by an American company – includes ingredients that come from Canada, he said.
A 25% tariff tacked onto imported products would inevitably have to be passed on to shoppers.
“We can’t eat this,” Guy said. “We’re going to pass on the tariff. We’re not going to add a margin or anything like that, but a lot of these are low margin products.” More

<!–> [–> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>Robert Maxim, a fellow at the Brookings Metro, a Washington think tank that has done similar analysis, said that other countries had particularly targeted Trump-supporting regions and places where “Trump would like to […] More

The University of Michigan Survey of Consumers for March posted a reading of 57.9, a 10.5% decline from February and below the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 63.2.
The one-year inflation outlook spiked to 4.9%, the highest reading since November 2022. At the five-year horizon, the outlook jumped to 3.9%, the highest since February 1993.
While the measure is often prone to disparities between parties, survey officials said sentiment slumped across partisan lines along with virtually all demographics.

Consumer sentiment took another hit in March as worries intensified over inflation and a slumping stock market, according to the University of Michigan’s latest sentiment survey released Friday.
The survey posted a mid-month reading of 57.9, which represents a 10.5% decline from February and was below the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 63.2. The reading was 27.1% below a year ago and was the lowest since November 2022.

While the current conditions index fell a less severe 3.3%, the expectations measure for the future was off 15.3% on a monthly basis and 30% from the same period in 2024.
In addition, fears grew over where inflation is headed as President Donald Trump institutes tariffs against U.S. trading partners. New duties on aluminum and steel took effect Wednesday, and the president this week also threatened 200% tariffs on European Union liquor after the EU hit U.S. whiskey and other goods with 50% levies.
The one-year outlook spiked to 4.9%, up 0.6 percentage point from February and the highest reading since November 2022. At the five-year horizon, the outlook jumped to 3.9%, up 0.4 percentage point for the highest level since February 1993.
Stocks largely brushed off the report, holding in positive territory while Treasury yields moved higher.
Though the measure is often prone to disparities between parties, survey officials said sentiment slumped across partisan lines along with virtually all demographics.

“Many consumers cited the high level of uncertainty around policy and other economic factors; frequent gyrations in economic policies make it very difficult for consumers to plan for the future, regardless of one’s policy preferences,” Joanne Hsu, the survey’s director, said. “Consumers from all three political affiliations are in agreement that the outlook has weakened since February.”
Expectations fell 10% for Republicans, 24% for Democrats and 12% for independents, Hsu added. Sentiment overall has fallen 22% since December.
The inflation outlook contradicts reports earlier this week showing that consumer prices rose less than expected while wholesale prices were flat in February.
Markets largely expect the Federal Reserve, which aims for a 2% inflation rate, to stay on hold when it concludes its two-day meeting Wednesday. Traders, though, are pricing in 0.75 percentage point of interest rate cuts by the end of the year, starting in June, according to the CME Group’s gauge of futures pricing.
Correction: Joanne Hsu is the survey’s director. An earlier version misspelled her name.

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By cutting federal employees, the Trump administration may increase its reliance on firms that take in billions through government contracts.A contracting firm called Leidos took in more than $16 billion in revenue last year, most of it through contracts with federal agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs.So when the Trump administration’s budget cutters took aim at the V.A. last month, it seemed like bad news not just for the department’s employees but also for Leidos and dozens of other private-sector firms.“No more paying consultants to do things like make Power Point slides and write meeting minutes!” the department’s secretary, Doug Collins, wrote on X. Overall, the department said, it was canceling more than 850 contracts worth nearly $2 billion.But shortly after Mr. Collins’s announcement, the outlook for some of the V.A.’s contractors seemed to brighten. The department put the cancellations on pause, saying it needed to review the contracts to avoid “eliminating any benefits or services” to veterans or V.A. beneficiaries. It later narrowed the list of canceled contracts by a few hundred.And experts on government contracting said cuts to the agency, which announced last week that it was seeking to trim 80,000 of its roughly 480,000 employees, could even lead to increased spending on federal contracts.These experts noted that cutting employees without reining in a government function — like providing health care and benefits to veterans, work in which Leidos plays a key role — typically means the job will fall more heavily on contractors.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Men and women socialize at the end of the day outside The Castle Pub in London, United Kingdom.
Robert Nickelsberg | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The U.K.’s economy unexpectedly shrank by 0.1% month-on-month in January, official figures showed on Friday.
Britain’s Office for National Statistics said the fall was mainly due to a contraction in the production sector.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected the country’s GDP to grow by 0.1%.
At 7:35 a.m. in London, shortly after the data release, the British pound was down by around 0.15% against the dollar to trade at $1.293. Sterling was flat against the euro.
Meanwhile, long-term government borrowing costs, which spiked to multi-decade highs earlier this year, rose. The yield on 20-year U.K. government bonds — known as gilts — added 2 basis points, while 30-year gilt yields were up by 4 basis points.
Services output picked up by 0.1% month-on-month in January, but marked a slowdown from the 0.4% hike of December. Production output dropped by 0.9% on the month, after recording a 0.5% rise in the previous month. Monthly construction output meanwhile fell by another 0.2% in January, after also shedding 0.2% in December.
The U.K. economy grew by 0.1% in the fourth quarter, beating expectations, ONS data showed last month. It flatlined in the third quarter.

The monthly GDP data has been checkered since then, with a 0.1% contraction in October, a 0.1% expansion in November and a 0.4% month-on-month expansion in December thanks, to growth in services and production.
Friday’s GDP release will be the last data print before the U.K. Treasury’s “Spring Statement” on March 26, when Chancellor Rachel Reeves presents an update on her plans for the British economy.
The statement is released alongside economic forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the U.K.’s independent economic and fiscal forecaster, which gives its assessment on the likely impact of the government’s tax and spending plans.
There have been concerns that the Treasury’s fiscal plans, which were laid out last fall and which will increase the tax burden on British businesses, could weigh on investment, jobs and growth. Reeves has defended the tax rises, saying they’re a one-off measure and necessary to boost investment in public services.
The Bank of England made its first interest rate cut of the year in February, signaling further cuts were to come as it halved the U.K.’s growth forecast for 2025 from 1.5% to 0.75%.
Markets are widely expecting the Bank of England to hold rates steady at 4.5% at its Monetary Policy Committee meeting next week, LSEG data showed on Friday.
The central bank said it would judge how to balance the need to boost growth with the inflationary risk posed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs. The U.K. has not been specifically targeted so far, but its exports of steel and aluminum to the U.S. will fall under Trump’s blanket 25% import duties on the metals.
In a note on Friday, Paul Dales, chief U.K. economist at Capital Economics, said the data highlighted the weakness in the British economy before the impact of rising business taxes and geopolitical uncertainty had fully set in.
“Most of the weakness is just payback from the surprisingly strong 0.4% m/m rise in GDP in December,” he said. “In other words, December’s figures made the economy look stronger than it really was and January’s make it look a bit weaker. The truth is probably that the underlying pace of growth is a little bit above zero.”
He added that although U.S. President Donald Trump’s blanket tariffs on steel and aluminum had only come into effect this week, they could already have impacted the U.K. economy.
“The 1.1% m/m fall in manufacturing output was partly due to a 3.3% m/m drop in metals output,” he explained. “It’s possibly related [to tariffs] as they have been anticipated for a while.”
Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer told politicians he was hopeful the U.K. could still evade Trump’s protectionist trade policies.  
“I’m disappointed to see global tariffs in relation to steel and aluminium, but we will take a pragmatic approach,” he said. “We are negotiating an economic deal which covers and will include tariffs if we succeed, but we will keep all options on the table.” More

Trade wars with allies could spiral as the president tries to get trading partners to back down from retaliation with new threats of his own.For the second time this week, President Trump has threatened to disrupt trade with a close ally for retaliating in a trade war that he started — a tactic that could lead to compromise, or to economic spats that spiral further out of control.On Thursday morning, Mr. Trump tried to cow the European Union into submission, threatening in a social media post to put a 200 percent tariff on European wine and Champagne unless the bloc dropped a 50 percent tariff on U.S. whiskey. The European Union had imposed that tariff in response to levies that Mr. Trump put on global steel and aluminum on Wednesday.Mr. Trump deployed a similar tactic against Canada on Tuesday, threatening to double 25 percent tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to try to get Ontario to lift a surcharge on electricity sold to the United States. The province had imposed the charge after Mr. Trump put other tariffs on Canada this month.After Ontario suspended its surcharge, Mr. Trump walked back his threats.Over the last several weeks, Mr. Trump has presided over a confusing and potentially economically devastating back and forth of tariffs and tariff threats, playing a global game of chicken as he tries to get some of the United States’ closest allies and trading partners to back down.Mr. Trump has wielded the tariff threats without regard for their economic consequences and, increasingly, seemingly without regard for the impact on stock markets. The S&P 500 slumped again on Thursday after Mr. Trump threatened Europe and reiterated at the White House that he would impose big tariffs.When asked whether he might relent on Canada, which sent a delegation to the United States on Thursday to try to calm trade tensions, Mr. Trump said: “I’m not going to bend at all.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

On the surface, February’s inflation data brought some encouraging news. But underneath, there were signs likely to keep the Fed on hold when it comes to interest rates.
While the consumer and producer price indexes both were lower than market expectations, that won’t necessarily be reflected in the main PCE price index measure the Fed uses to gauge inflation.
“In short, progress on inflation has started off 2025 on the wrong foot,” Bank of America economist Stephen Juneau said in a note.

Watermelons from Mexico are displayed on a shelf at a Target store on March 5, 2025 in Novato, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

On the surface, February’s inflation data released this week brought some encouraging news. But underneath, there were signs likely to keep the Federal Reserve on hold when it comes to interest rates.
While the consumer and producer price indexes both were lower than anticipated, that won’t necessarily be reflected in the main measure the Fed uses to gauge inflation.

Because of some byzantine math and trends in a few key areas beneath the headline readings, policymakers are unlikely to take a lot of comfort in these numbers, according to multiple Wall Street economists.
“In short, progress on inflation has started off 2025 on the wrong foot,” Bank of America economist Stephen Juneau said in a note. “Our forecast for PCE inflation reinforces our view that inflation is unlikely to fall enough for the Fed to cut this year, especially given policy changes that boost inflation. We maintain our view that policy rates will stay on hold through year-end unless activity data really weakens.”
Markets agree, at least for now. Traders are assigning virtually no probability of a cut at next week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting and only about a 1-in-4 chance of a reduction in May, according to CME Group calculations.

While the Fed pays attention to the two Bureau of Labor Statistics gauges, it considers the last word on inflation to be the Commerce Department’s personal consumption expenditures price index.
Central bank officials believe the PCE reading — in particular the core that excludes food and energy prices — to be a broader look at price trends. The index also more closely reflects what consumers are buying rather than just the prices of individual goods and services. If consumers are, say, substituting chicken for beef, that would be more indicated in the PCE rather than the CPI or PPI.

Most economists think the latest PCE reading, scheduled for release later this month, will show the year-over-year inflation rate at best holding steady at 2.6% or perhaps even ticking up a notch — further away from the Fed’s 2% goal.
Specifically, Thursday’s PPI report, which measures wholesale costs and is thus considered an indicator of pipeline inflation, “confirms our fears that the benign February inflation print would map across to a hotter than expected inflation print on the Fed’s preferred PCE inflation gauge,” wrote Krishna Guha, head of global policy and central bank strategy at Evercore ISI.
“Rather than decline steadily through early [second quarter], PCE inflation looks instead set to be bumpy and choppy,” he added.
Some of the areas that will feed through from the PPI and elevate the PCE include higher prices for hospital care as well as insurance prices and air transportation, according to Sam Tombs, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
“The outturn almost certainly will make the Fed wince,” Combs wrote.
Combs predicts the core PCE reading for February will show an inflation rate of 2.8%, a 0.2 percentage point increase from January. That’s about in line with others on the Street, as Bank of America and Citigroup see the core inflation rate at 2.7%. Either way, it’s moving in the wrong direction. The consumer price index showed a core inflation rate of 3.1%, the lowest since April 2021.
However, there could be some good news yet.
As much as the expectation is for a bounce from February, many forecasters see inflation pulling back beyond that, even with the impact from tariffs.
Citi thinks March will see a “much more favorable” reading, with the firm predicting an out-of-consensus call of the Fed resuming its rate cuts in May. Market pricing currently indicates a much greater likelihood of a June cut.

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