Why Canadians Are Better Than Americans at Protesting Trump Right Now

by | Apr 4, 2025 | The Atlantic

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In America, the chaotic first few months of Donald Trump’s term have featured roiling stock markets, mass deportations, and a Tesla showroom on the White House lawn. But if you look north, it has unified Canadians against a common threat: a country once considered a friend.

In a bewildering reversal of a close allyship that’s lasted for more than a century, Trump recently started a hot-and-cold trade war that has so far produced 25 percent tariffs on many of Canada’s goods. Canada has imposed retaliatory tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. imports, and announced yesterday that more are set to go in effect in response to Trump’s latest auto levy. In the meantime, Trump keeps waving around the threat of annexation. He has repeatedly suggested that Canada become America’s “51st state” and, according to The New York Times, told then–Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in early February that he considers the 1908 treaty delineating the Canada-U.S. border to be invalid . Many Canadians have responded in kind, sending a clear message to the Trump administration by hitting America where it hurts: the economy.

Now is “the time to choose Canada,” Trudeau said in February. “It might mean opting for Canadian rye over Kentucky bourbon, or forgoing Florida orange juice altogether.” The “Buy Canadian” movement is gaining ground; Canada is America’s top export market, and 63 percent of Canadians are actively looking for Canadian-made products when they shop, according to a poll from February (though enthusiasm for the movement varies based on class and age ). Some stores are adding “Made in Canada” labels to products—one liquor store in Vancouver posted “Buy Canadian Instead” signs on empty American-whiskey shelves—and Canadian grocers are reporting that domestic-product sales have recently increased by up to 10 percent . Canadians make up the largest group of international visitors to the U.S., but Canadian airline bookings for U.S. destinations have reportedly dropped more than 70 percent for the spring and summer, according to one industry monitor. The U.S. Travel Association calculates that a 10 percent annual decline in Canadian travelers could amount to more than $2.1 billion in spending losses for America.

Figuring out how to deal with Trump’s recent attacks is the top issue for some Canadian voters ahead of the April 28 federal election, ranking even higher than the economy. Conservative and Liberal party platforms prominently feature their plans for how to rebuild Canada with reduced dependence on America. “The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said last week. Across party and provincial lines, the path is clear: Canada wants to Trump-proof itself and America-proof the future.

On the other side of the border, Americans who oppose Trump have struggled to come up with a unified response to his presidency. In part because of the speed and scale of his directives, it’s been hard to develop a protest message or strategy that is as ubiquitous as the “Buy Canadian” movement. Since January 22, the number of street protests in the U.S. has more than doubled compared with the same period at the start of Trump’s first presidency—but they also tend to be smaller in scale, according to the Crowd Counting Consortium. Jeremy Pressman, a co-director of the organization, told me that disorientation could be a factor affecting protests. Since taking office, Trump has signed off on a flurry of actions that empower ICE to detain and deport people without due process , pave the way for Elon Musk’s shadow presidency , gut the federal government , and grant mass pardons for January 6ers (while also floating the idea of compensating them for their prison time ). What should the next protest focus on when so much of American life is under attack?

That’s not to say that larger-scale action has been absent in America. The People’s March took place in D.C., two days before Trump’s second inauguration, to “help participants find a political home.” Thousands joined, but it ultimately saw far fewer people than the Women’s March, eight years prior. Pressman noted that lately, more people have shown interest in economic boycotts of companies that support Trump or the administration’s anti-DEI agenda, including Amazon, Target, and Tesla. Republican representatives are getting shouted down in local town halls (Democrats, too, for their inaction), and protesters are demonstrating at Tesla facilities across the country. A bright spot has been the national “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, headlined by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which has drawn more than 100,000 attendees over the past month.

Protesters also face an environment especially hostile to dissent. When Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student activist on a green card, was arrested in New York last month, the government did not provide evidence of illegal activity. And when Rümeysa Öztürk, a graduate student who co-authored an op-ed urging her university to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” had her visa revoked without her knowledge and was confronted by six masked federal agents last week, the Department of Homeland Security stated vaguely that she had “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.” Their stories are a warning from the Trump administration: Defiance can come at a steep price.

Of course, protests outside the U.S. are bound to look much different from those in a country contending with its own leadership. But Canada’s situation is a notable point of contrast, because the sentiment of citizens is being echoed and acted on by their representatives. Even if America’s anti-Trump protests pick up more speed, a successful movement requires those in power to be willing and able to harness that energy. Traditionally, two important avenues for such action run through Congress and the courts. When Trump signed an executive order in 2017 banning travel to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries, thousands of people flooded airport terminals in protest. Civil-liberties groups took notice and filed suits in quick succession to block the order; the watered-down version of the ban, upheld by the Supreme Court more than a year later, was a pale imitation of the original.

Things are different this time. “Two months into Trump’s second term, fear is taking hold across broad cross sections of American society,” my colleague Isaac Stanley-Becker wrote last week. Trump and his allies are openly calling for the impeachment of federal judges who push back on his orders, and high-powered law firms are falling like dominoes as they capitulate to the administration’s demands. Half of Congress is beholden to the president; the other half is dogged by historically low favorability polling . Whereas Canadian leaders of all political stripes are calling for their constituents to boycott American goods, America’s only opposition party is scrambling to cobble together a coherent strategy . Democratic Senator Cory Booker, who delivered a record-breaking 25-hour speech on the Senate floor this week, issued a wake-up call to his fellow senators: “Generations from now will look back at this moment and have a single question: Where were you?”

Winning more blue congressional seats in the 2026 midterms is one way to loosen Trump’s grip on the federal government, but those are more than a year away. “The only way to win is people power,” Jonathan V. Last, the editor of The Bulwark, wrote last week; the Democratic Party “will have to be pushed into fighting by a mass popular movement.” “Hands Off!” protests against Trump and DOGE will take place around the country tomorrow, with a large march planned in Washington. Thousands have rallied to oppose the detainment of Öztürk and Khalil. And the sweeping “Liberation Day” tariff announcements have already ramped up outrage over potentially devastating price increases. Many Americans still have an appetite for dissent. But whereas the Trump presidency has cast into sharp relief Canada’s national identity, it has had the opposite effect domestically. The challenge for Trump’s detractors will be figuring out how to take a fractured coalition and rebuild.

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