The United States is fighting with Canada again. I can't say I’m surprised. We went two weeks without a new international fracas, and perhaps boredom struck. 

The resurrected tariff battle hits some travel products like sporting and outdoor gear – and hockey sticks, naturally. But the damage is in perception, and perception is expensive. 

Canadians were already boycotting the United States throughout 2025 and into 2026. Canadian travel to the U.S. fell 25% in 2025, with national return crossings down 25.4%, and early-2026 data show the decline held. That had just started to soften last month — June brought 2.3 million return trips, up 5% year over year, the first sign of a thaw — when this most recent trade war blossomed again.

Now, even government leaders are appealing to Canadians to avoid the United States. "If you have a choice, please don't travel to the United States. Choose another place to do your tourism,” British Columbia’s Premier David Eby said at a Vancouver news conference on Tuesday, according to the CBC.

Then it descended from Scylla to Charybdis. The President, with no warning, via Executive Order, renamed Lake Ontario “Lake America.” And as a spiritual Michigander and former public school student there, this one hurts like the demotion of Pluto.

It also comes at an interesting time for the State of New York. Last week, Governor Kathy Hochul launched NY Loves Canada, a campaign discounting hotels, attractions, and Broadway seats to win back the state's largest inbound international market. Canadian visitors to NY fell more than 26% last year, and their spending dropped 28%. So New York is courting Canadians at the exact moment the White House antagonizes them over a body of water on New York's own border. 

Prime Minister Mark Carney lamented the EO on X: “We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms. Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always.”

And while President Trump can rename the lake for U.S. federal purposes, which is why Carney could wave it off, the bill for the mood it creates won't hit Washington. That will happen in Niagara, in the Thousand Islands, in every border hotel and Broadway theater that counts on our neighbors to the North to come and open their wallets.