It’s been a strange fall in two of New York State’s westernmost counties, Niagara and Erie, on the Canadian border.
Far fewer Canadians are crossing into New York to enjoy the changing foliage and the region’s plentiful vineyards and orchards.
This is not entirely unexpected: Canadians have been scarce at cultural attractions, sporting events and shopping malls in the area since President Trump threatened Canada with tariffs two weeks into his second administration (following through on those threats March 4), and spoke of adding the country as the 51st state.
But that absence has been deeply felt, said Anthony Sprague, general manager of the Buffalo Bisons baseball club, the top minor-league affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, who are facing off against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. Canadians typically comprise a quarter of the club’s fan base at its downtown Buffalo stadium, he said. This season, that share has shrunk to 10 percent.
The team began receiving season ticket cancellations even before the baseball season got underway in March, Mr. Sprague said. “The narrative was all the same: ‘Nothing against you guys, we love you guys, but we need to take a stand by not coming across the border.’”
Tensions aren’t likely to dissipate anytime soon after Mr. Trump declared an immediate end to trade negotiations Thursday. His decision followed an angry post on Truth Social over an ad sponsored by the province of Ontario featuring President Ronald Reagan denouncing the use of tariffs.
“We stand ready to pick up on those discussions when the Americans are ready,” Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada said in response. On Friday, the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, said the ad would be withdrawn next week so that trade talks could resume.
Residents of both nations have been driving back and forth and visiting since the Peace Bridge connecting Buffalo and Fort Erie, Ontario, opened in 1927. Many people own homes on both sides of the border.
Patrick Kaler, president of Visit Buffalo, Erie County’s tourism and convention bureau, worries about how long Canadians’ disenchantment with the United States will continue, and what the long-term consequences might be. Canadians typically generate 35 to 40 percent of the region’s annual tourism revenue, according to the bureau.
“The friendly, congenial nature we have had for years, I’m afraid, is going to be destroyed the longer this carries on,” Mr. Kaler said. “We’ve heard people say, ‘We’ll see you in four years,’ but that’s a long time from now.”
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, had high hopes of a robust Canadian turnout when it planned its current exhibition, “Northern Lights,” featuring major Nordic and Canadian landscape paintings. The museum, which displays modern and contemporary art and completed a $195 million expansion in 2023, is just six miles from the border.
But the throngs of Canadians anticipated when the show opened in August haven’t materialized. Monthly visits by Canadians to the museum over the past two years (tracked using address information from online and in-person ticket sales) hovered between 7 percent and 10 percent, a museum spokesman said. This past February, after Mr. Trump took office, that figure plummeted to under 3 percent, where it has remained, said Janne Sirén, the museum’s director.
The prolonged drop-off is deeply worrisome, Mr. Sirén said. “The economic and cultural life of Buffalo is inextricably intertwined with Canada, and the same is true of the Buffalo AKG.”
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House, also in Buffalo, has seen a similar decline in attendance by Canadians since February, according to Jessie Fisher, the chief executive of the nonprofit that manages the house.
Several Canadian school group tours have canceled their reservations for this year and 2026, citing the fear some Canadians have of being detained by U.S. agents at the border amid the Trump’s administration’s immigration crackdown, Ms. Fisher said.
She said the president’s posture toward Canada had created anger and alienation that, as a longtime Buffalo resident, she regretted as much as the lost revenue.
“When you grow up here, you know all the words to the Canadian national anthem, and when you grow up in southern Ontario, you are a Bills fan,” Ms. Fisher said, referring to Buffalo’s N.F.L. team. “We miss our neighbors.”
Michelle Urbanczyk, the chief executive of Explore & More — The Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Children’s Museum, on Buffalo’s waterfront, said the museum’s 2026 budget now anticipates Canadians comprising 10 percent of its visitors, down from 25 percent last year. “It’s such a disappointment,” she said.
Bridge crossings into the United States from Canada tell part of the story. In September, the number of vehicles crossing the Peace, Lewiston-Queenston, Rainbow and Whirlpool Bridges was down nearly 14 percent compared with a year earlier, according to the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority. (That was an improvement from May, when crossings were down 21 percent year over year.)
The most recent study of Canadians by Longwoods International, a market research firm working with the tourism industry, found that 63 percent of active travelers said they were less likely to come to the United States, with most citing tariffs and political statements by U.S. leaders.
A slim majority of respondents said they no longer perceived the United States as “a place I would feel welcome” or “a safe place to visit.” They also disagreed that “international travelers are valued there” and that the country is “welcoming to travelers of diverse backgrounds.”
That study was conducted in mid-July, and attitudes may have shifted since then. But many Canadians continue to cite their anger toward the U.S. government and fear of crossing the border as reasons to stay home.
“I have gone back and forth across that border all my life with relative ease, but I don’t feel safe anymore,” said Cheryl Sulliman, a Fort Erie resident. “It’s not worth it for me to cross the border for any reason and put myself at risk.”
Tanya Evans, who lives in Crystal Beach, a waterfront neighborhood of Fort Erie, agreed: “I wouldn’t go to Niagara Falls, U.S.A., or to Buffalo to see the Bills play, simply because of what Trump has said and is doing to Canada.”
At Earl W. Brydges Artpark State Park in Lewiston, N.Y., about a 30-minute drive north of Buffalo, Canadian attendance this summer at concerts and other public events was about half of what it has been typically, said Dave Wedekindt, Artpark’s president, citing ticket sales data. The Aquarium of Niagara, in Niagara Falls, N.Y., has also seen a nearly 50 percent decline in Canadian patrons, according to Christine Stephans, its communications director.
The Fashion Outlets of Niagara Falls, a mall on the New York side of the border, has long depended heavily on Canadian shoppers, but on a recent afternoon the corridors’ polished floors looked as if they had received little foot traffic.
Shoppers and shop owners cited the exchange rate between the two countries’ currencies as another deterrent for Canadians. At Envoy International’s currency exchange branch inside the mall, 100 Canadian dollars was worth $68.16 on Oct. 21.
Arun Khosla, vice president of communications for Macerich, the mall’s owner, declined to be interviewed, saying only that “we acknowledge some softening in Canadian visits over the past several months.”
Some businesses viewed the drop-off in starker terms.
Engin Ozkan of Express Jewelers estimated that his business at the mall was down by nearly half. “The mall used to have a lot of Canadian shoppers,” he said. “Now you see a lot of stores are closed here. Why? Because those Canadians are not coming here anymore.”
At Larosa Pizza, in the mall’s food court, a cashier, Tahlia Willis, said a screen in the back office monitored traffic crossing the Rainbow Bridge between Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls on the U.S. side. “It’s usually people leaving,” she said. “There’s not a lot of people coming in.”
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