Back at the beginning of this year, when Donald Trump was spouting his “51st State” nonsense and threatening a tariff war with Canada, there were concerns about the effect on Vermont’s tourism economy. Well, we’re almost a year into the second reign of King Manbaby, and the numbers show that Vermont has, in fact, suffered greatly from Trump’s cold war with our neighbors.
Canadian tourism is down. Way down.
Canadian credit card spending in Vermont is down even more.
This is only one of the many negative effects of Trump on Vermont. Tariffs have bedeviled many Vermont industries and businesses, and have hit housing construction especially There are real and potential losses in federal funding, including the rampant politicization of disaster recovery aid. There’s the chilling effect on migrant workers, which is putting a real hurt on our construction and agricultural sectors.
I can’t quantify those effects. But I’ve got a bunch of numbers regarding Canadian tourism. And man, do they ever make for some grim reading.
First of all, baseline: According to state figures, some 750,000 Canadians visit Vermont in a typical year (until 2025 at least), contributing about $150 million a year in economic activity. Those aren’t huge numbers compared to the entire tourism industry; we get about 16 million visitors a year, and they spend more than $4 billion while they’re here.
But it’s not nothing, either, and this isn’t the best time for a key industry to be taking a substantial hit.
How much of a hit? Here we go.
The Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development keeps tabs on Canadian tourism because it’s just that important. All of ACCD’s measures are off significantly in 2025. “Travel intent,” a measure of Canadians’ intentions to visit the U.S., “declined sharply in February 2025 and has generally continued a slow decline since.” Specifically, in 2024 nearly one-quarter of all Canadians expressed the intention of visiting the States. So far in 2025, that number is only about 15%.
That’s a 40% drop, for those keeping score.
ACCD also reported data for Canadians crossing the border from the U.S. to Canada, a measure of Canadian visitors returning home. Across the northern border, we’ve seen a 31% decline in return crossings this year compared to 2024. The same figure holds for return crossings at Vermont border points.
And here’s the biggie: According to ACCD, Canadian credit card spending in Vermont this year is roughly half what it was in 2024. In September, the decline checked in at 55%.
Here’s a chart comparing credit card spends in 2023, 2024, and so far in 2025 (through September).
The losses were relatively minor in January and February, perhaps because tourists didn’t cancel already-made plans. But they fell into a chasm after that, and there’s no sign of a turnaround.
Last week, state economist Tom Kavet pointed out that the drop in Canadian visitors and spending would cost the state tax revenue, which will make an already perilous budget-writing process even more challenging. He told lawmakers that Trump’s Canada policies were “a costly unforced error,” adding that “if you want to rub it in somebody’s face and nose, you’re going to get reactions like this.”
Kavet reported declines in traffic at Vermont’s visitor centers — with by far the biggest drops at the two centers near the Canadian border. Traffic at all visitor centers is down about 9% from last year, but traffic at the Alburgh and Derby Line centers was down a massive 36%. (The only visitor center to report increased traffic this year was in Bennington, almost as far as you can get from Canada and still be in Vermont.)
These measures taken together point to a drop of close to one-third in Canadian tourism in Vermont since Trump took office. That would point to a direct hit to the state economy in the range of $50 million, more or less.
And that’s in spite of all our best efforts to make our Canadian neighbors feel welcome here. We can’t overcome the stench of Trump’s hateful, mercurial Canada policy. The only thing that will make it better is getting rid of King Manbaby.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
I suggest a ‘trump tax’ on all trump voting Vermonters to help pay for the deficit. Can send the tax bill via mail with the headline “I VOTED FOR THIS”.
“The only thing that will make it better is getting rid of King Manbaby.”
Even then, if we ever do get rid of this little fuhrer wannabe, why would Canadians want to come here after what we did to them? They know that this country — although not Vermont — voted for the dumpster and when he’s finally gone, they’ll be some other wannabe like him coming along. The American experiment, if you will, is over and America as a nice neighbor, if you will, is over and Canadians know it.
Still, I was surprised that many Canadians did come down. I work in the front lines of Vermont’s tourist industry (the kind of people that ACCD doesn’t listen to as we’re not experts:)) and I talked with many Canadians this year about the stupidity of this situation. Many said that they liked Vermont and knew that we did not vote for the felon in the white house. Some said that they would go no further than Vt.
Why can’t we become their 11th province?
Walter, there is more to Canada than Quebec. If you go west of Ottawa, its MAGA city, I can assure you. Go to Alberta and plenty of people would love to be the 51st state. The Conservative Party just received 41% of the vote in the last election there IN 2025. To think that “they’ll be some other wannabe like him” like Trump isn’t a wannabe Nixon, McCarthy, Jackson, etc is ignorant of American history. So yes, they will come back, they will come here because the US is still more awesome than anywhere else but Montreal and we will be there to say something like, “sorry about that, it won’t happen again.” except it will, only it won’t be till like 2100 when Barron’s grandkid runs.
Why can’t we become their 11th province?
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. The devil you know and devil you don’t. The provinces are not exactly sitting around a campfire and singing kumbaya right now.
Liberal Prime Minister (and former governor of the Bank of England) Mark Carney is holding hands with Conservative Premier of Alberta Danielle Smith as they try to shove (for the second or third time) a tar sands pipeline through the mountains to a port in British Columbia, which wants no part of it. Carney’s budget (and thereby his position as prime minister) hung by a single vote a couple weeks ago as Conservative members crossed the floor in response to vicious attacks on them by their own leadership.
Internecine hand-to-hand combat has, for the first time in twenty years, resurfaced in Quebec — something resembling the Brexit fiasco — with the Parti Québécois and the Parti libéral du Québec once again fiercely contending on the opposing sides of sovereignty versus continued membership in the confederation, with charges of incompetence, vote-buying and assorted garden-variety corruption flying back and forth.
A long-smoldering streak of antisemitism has unfortunately flared up throughout the country since Oct 7th. An enormous amount of Canadian financial and intellectual information is stored on American servers and corporate interests are beginning to follow on down. An ugly about-face in support for asylum seekers and refugees is taking place — someone must be to blame for the abominably high cost of living and the complete lack of affordable housing from coast to coast!
It all sounds depressingly familiar.