It’s Not Just a Boycott. It’s a Breakup.
A News Bulletin (Late March, 2025)
By: Leonard Stevens
Canadian flight bookings to the U.S. has dropped over 70% for summer 2025.
That statistic landed this week like a brick—OAG’s data confirming what anyone with a passport and a pulse already felt in their gut: Canadians aren’t just canceling trips. They’re walking away from a relationship.
This isn’t just a boycott. It’s a rupture.
Because for all the breathless headlines about visas, tariffs, and the “travel experience,” the truth is simpler and far harder to fix: the way people see the U.S. has changed. And even if tensions cool down, that shift may not reverse.
A Calculated Fracture
There wasn’t just one spark—there was an election. Many people abroad didn’t expect restraint from the Trump administration, but they assumed the consequences would stay largely inside the U.S. Something loud, maybe chaotic, but ultimately domestic.
What they didn’t expect was for that chaos to spill outward—into trade, diplomacy, border policy, affecting people’s sense of safety and well-being around the world.
And then it did.
The antagonism turned outward—first as rhetoric, then as policy. Executive Order 25 STATE 11402 forced travelers to declare sex assigned at birth on U.S. travel forms. Trans and nonbinary people suddenly found themselves flagged, blocked, or turned away—despite having legal documentation. That alone triggered travel advisories from Canada, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and more.
But that was just one thread in a broader unraveling.
Canada, once the friend you didn’t have to think about, got torched:
Trump called it “America’s 51st state.”
He declared the Canada–U.S. border “just a line.”
A full-blown trade war was launched.
Vice President JD Vance suggested that Greenland’s Arctic routes could be used to threaten Canada’s safety—somehow managing to threaten an ally while pretending to defend it.
And in the middle of all this, Vance’s own Greenland trip—a staged joint appearance with his wife—landed like a diplomatic brick through a window. Greenlandic leaders called it political intrusion. Denmark called it “unacceptable.” Trump doubled down, calling Denmark “nasty” and repeating that the U.S. “needs Greenland.”
This wasn’t strategic ambiguity. To many, it smacked of the Monroe doctrine and American Imperialism.
Then there was the Signal leak, where top Trump officials—Vance, Pete Hegseth, and Tulsi Gabbard—were exposed casually discussing not only attack plans for a strike on Yemen but also plans to undermine Europe militarily and destabilize its economy.
Not China. Not Russia. Europe.
And So the World Responds
Things are happening—and fast. Policies, detentions, advisories, headlines.
Governments are updating guidance. Travelers are canceling. People are paying attention, trying to make sense of what this adds up to.
They’re processing. And beginning to act.
🇩🇪 Germany: Updated its advisory after multiple citizens were detained despite clean documentation.
🇫🇷 France: Warns that gender mismatches on documentation may lead to entry denial. Embassy consultation now strongly advised.
🇬🇧 UK: Notes that ESTA or visa approval is “not a guarantee of entry.”
🇧🇪 🇳🇱 🇦🇹 🇩🇰 🇫🇮 🇮🇪: All now echo the same message—if you’re LGBTQ+, if your paperwork isn’t flawless, or if you expect a smooth entry, you might want to reconsider.
The Reddit Thread That Said the Quiet Part Loud
On Reddit’s r/worldnews, the response to Canada’s dramatic drop in U.S. travel was swift — and emotionally raw. Within 36 hours, the post had drawn over 1.7 million views, 15,000 upvotes, and 800+ comments, with a 98–99% approval rating. It was shared more than 600 times off-platform.
The comment section reads like a mix of collective reckoning and group therapy — not just from Canadians, but from people around the world. They're cancelling trips, selling property, pulling out of long-standing plans, and echoing, in strikingly unified language: “We’re done.”
This isn’t being framed as a protest.
It’s something deeper. It’s a breakup.
Some highlights:
“Cancelled Disneyland, heading to Cancun instead.”
“Nothing in America is good enough to take a risk to go down there tbh. So many better places to go in the world…”
“Fratboy nation.”
“I'm 48. I'm never going back. Ever.”
American border agent > Do you have anti-Trump things on your phone? Answer: I'm Canadian, of course I f&%cking do!
“Going to take my tourist dollars elsewhere until this 51st state bullshit ends.”
“…for all those chronically apologizing Americans, if Trump invades a foreign nation what's the plan? Because if I have to get bombed and apologized too I might actually lose my mind.”
“My family …have been selling property they had in the states. So far that's 6 condo time shares, 2 Arizona snowbird winter homes and a cabin in Alaska just in my immediate family circle.”
“Used to go monthly for groceries and gas. Not anymore.”
“Not worth the risk. Not worth the humiliation.”
“I’m a brit with tickers to Buffalo. Not going anymore. My phone is riddled with Trump hate.”
“I'm not from Canada, but I literally left my job because it required me to travel to the US every other week.”
Elsewhere, others brought receipts. Stories of business trips derailed. Border guards with unchecked power. Day-trippers flagged for “secondary.”
And beneath the anecdotes, a clear throughline: the U.S. no longer feels like a normal place to visit.
Will European Travelers Follow?
Canada isn’t just pulling back—it’s walking away.
The collapse in travel is real, and what makes it remarkable is that it’s grassroots. Not led by governments, not coordinated by media—just people deciding they’re done.
Europe? The sentiment is there. The travel advisories are stacking up. The political friction is already public. But the traveler data? Still waiting on it.
There’s the Signal leak. The Greenland visit. The annexation talk. The threats. And now, stories of travelers having their phones taken, their social media scanned at the border - details that feel especially out of place to privacy-conscious Europeans.
All of it tied to U.S. travel. But none of it just about travel.
What’s shifting isn’t paperwork or tourism preference—it’s perception. It’s the idea of what the U.S. is, and whether it’s a place you want to be subject to, even briefly.
Maybe the question isn’t whether others will follow.
Maybe it’s who’s still waiting to decide—and what their decision will be.
Developing.