Every year I go on a trip to visit friends in northern Canada, a trip so routine for me that I almost forget to pack my passport. I have always known that traveling across the US-Canada border is just a formality, a set of standard procedures set out primarily in the optical field. After all, in 2024, hundreds of thousands of people will cross borders every day, some for reasons as trivial as getting cheaper gas. In addition to civilian traffic, trucks carrying billions of dollars worth of goods also passed through the border last year.
Historically, the United States and Canada have had one of the most comprehensive trade relationships in the world. Both countries are the other’s largest trading partners; 3.7 million jobs It relies on the networks formed by this uniquely close relationship. Food makes up the majority of goods transported across borders every day. In 2024, $45 billion worth of processed foods and agricultural products, from cereals and pancake mixes to lettuce and green beans, will be exported from the United States to Canada.
Close ties between the two countries came to a screeching halt in early 2025 when the Trump administration took office. imposed a 25% trade tariff About Mexico and Canada. In response, Ontario Premier Doug Ford ordered government-controlled liquor stores to stop selling American products. Later that same week, Donald Trump threatened to annex Canada as the 51st state. Our neighbors to the north did not take this threat kindly and began to rethink average household spending. $8,500 per year About American products. A grassroots movement to avoid American-made products and buy Canadian-made products has taken root. By mid-March, 91% of Canadians surveyed by Lightspeed Commerce were prioritizing Canadian products when shopping, and 73% were boycotting American products altogether.
Close ties between the two countries came to a screeching halt in early 2025 when the Trump administration took office. imposed a 25% trade tariff About Mexico and Canada.
When I visited Canada in July of this year, a boycott movement was active at my host Sophia’s house. Gone are staples like Diet Coke and Oreos. In its place came Canadian alternatives like Sobeys brand Diet Coke (a subpar alternative for Diet Coke lovers like me). Red maple leaf stickers and “Proudly Made in Canada” labels adorned everything from black cherry ice cream to ketchup. For Sophia and her family, the Buy Canadian movement was on their minds every time they went to the grocery store. They chose Canadian products regardless of cost, and avoided them altogether when alternatives were not available.
Commitment to exercise doesn’t come cheap. Karuna Scheinfeld, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen who recently moved back to New York City from Toronto, said the boycott has led to lower prices for American products in the Canadian market. This summer, she noticed that American strawberries that had been discounted by more than half were still off the shelves, while more expensive Ontario strawberries were selling for three to four times that price.
For some Canadians, rising grocery costs mean they still care more about the price of a product than where it’s made. Elizabeth Asokansane, a 25-year-old teacher who lives “paycheck to paycheck” in London, Ont., says Canadians who are truly committed to the Buy Canadian movement are the ones who don’t have to worry about food prices. “They’re trying to decide in their blood, ‘Should I save my dollar and go to Giant Tiger, or should I go to Farm Boy and buy some really good fruit?'” She noticed that older members of the Indo-Canadian community seemed to avoid the whole problem by shopping at Asian-Canadian grocery stores stocked with imports from India and China.
Sabine O’Donnell, a 28-year-old librarian in Toronto, feels similarly. She shops at affordable grocery stores like No Frills and mostly buys the cheapest items or items on sale. It’s not that Sabine doesn’t care about where her food comes from. She has been boycotting Canadian grocery giant Loblaws for more than a year over alleged price gouging, and says, “I have never shopped on Amazon, and I hope I never do so again.” She doesn’t have the luxury of always being strict when shopping.
For a group of middle-aged Canadians I spoke to in rural Ontario, the biggest change seemed to be replacing wines from California and Oregon with grapes grown in Canadian provinces, such as Cabernet Sauvignon from British Columbia and Blanc de Blancs from Nova Scotia. Over the past seven months, these people said they have noticed slight changes in the products offered at their local grocery stores. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Canada’s imports from the United States are decreased Since the start of the second Trump administration, imports from China and Mexico, the next largest trading partners, have increased by 9% and 7%, respectively, while increasing by 2%. Imports from other regions such as Central and South America and Africa are also increasing.
Gone are staples like Diet Coke and Oreos. In its place came Canadian alternatives such as Sobeys brand Diet Coke.
Even more crops are grown in local greenhouses. For Courtney Walker, a London, Ont.-based research manager, the hardest-to-find Canadian items in the early days of the boycott were leafy greens like spinach and lettuce, but slowly spinach arrived first, all vertically grown, mostly from Quebec, and then many other vertical companies started popping up. “By the end of March, we had multiple options,” she says. “Initially, it was mostly sold in high-end grocery stores and was probably two or three times more expensive, but by late April or early May, it was comparable in price to U.S. products.”
Haven Greens, a greenhouse farm that produces leafy greens, is one of the brands that hit Courtney’s grocery store shelves in March. Founder Jay Willmott has been working on building the farm since 2022, but it was a coincidence that he launched the business in March 2025, just as the Buy Canadian movement was starting to gain momentum.
Wilmot has long believed Canada’s leafy vegetable supply chain was too long. He says 97 per cent of Canada’s leafy vegetables are imported from the United States. Dependency creates instability. Arizona’s epidemic could mean significant price increases for people living in Toronto. While Wilmot wasn’t necessarily predicting a trade war, this is an example of a supply chain issue that he recognized could impact Canadians in the near future. The March launch date is fortuitous, as the company says weekly sales have increased more than 1,200% since March 2025.
Since January, Wilmot has fielded countless calls from other Canadians starting greenhouse farms, and a second fully automated greenhouse company has started operations in Quebec. Asked whether he thinks Canadians will buy American products again, Wilmot is realistic. “At the end of the day, in our category, people flock to brands that offer the best quality at the best price,” he says. “We’re not focused on whether it’s Canadian or American. We just want to bring the best-tasting, crunchiest vegetables to market, while being able to get them on shelves at an attractive price point.”
The globalization of production chains can be disruptive for packaged goods. If tomatoes are grown in the U.S. to make ketchup produced in Canada, are they American or Canadian? “I’m going to buy something that’s processed in Canada even though the ingredients are from the U.S.,” says Marilyn Evans of Ontario. But she won’t buy products that say “may be from the United States or Mexico.”
All labeling can be complicated. a Recent CBC News investigation found that large grocery chains frequently falsely label products as Canadian-produced when that is unlikely to be the case (for example, labeling almonds as Canadian-produced when the almonds are not grown anywhere in Canada).
Despite the additional efforts, Marilyn said the Buy Canadian movement has made her “more proud than ever to be Canadian” and she plans to continue buying Canadian products indefinitely. But there is one American product she admitted to buying. Her dog has been on the same diet for 11 years, eating dog food from Kansas-based Hill’s Pet Nutrition, and she has no plans to change it. After all, pets have no say in international economic policy.
