More and more Canadians boycott US products in response to Trump's tariffs

At first it looked like a protest for a few, now it risks becoming an international economic and political case. The Canadian boycott against US products is now a certainty. For months now, a growing number of citizens in Canada have been trying not to buy products from the United States, in direct response to the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on steel, aluminium and other imports. And now there is data to back this up. Because a survey by the Bank of Canada - published this week by Bloomberg - certified that about 63% of Canadians said they had reduced their purchases of American products, while more than half admitted to avoiding trips to the United States.

At the same time, the preference for domestic goods and destinations increased, albeit at a higher price: many respondents said they were willing to pay even up to 10 per cent more in order to buy Canadian.

Among the most obvious manifestations of the Canadian reaction to Trump's tariffs is the disappearance of American spirits from shop shelves in several provinces. It should be recalled, in fact, that already in March many local governments decided to remove bourbon, whiskey and other US spirits as a form of institutional protest. And the impact was immediate.

According to an analysis by Spirits Canada, US spirits sales plummeted 66.3% between 5 March and the end of April. In Ontario, the country's largest market, the contraction reached 80%. But the boycott was not limited to US products. The entire industry suffered a backlash: in the same period, total sales of spirits in Canada fell by 12.8%. Domestic brands were also affected by the tense climate, with Canadian products dropping by 6.3% and other third-country imports by 8.2%.

However, there is no shortage of doubts about the long-term effectiveness of a strategy based on economic nationalism. Jack Daniel's, through its parent company Brown-Forman, has called the boycott 'worse than the tariffs themselves', while several analysts warn that a prolonged extension of the boycott also risks harming Canadian companies and consumers, already struggling with high inflation and an uncertain labour market.