While the continuing threat to US President Donald Trump’s prices, new data show that fewer people are traveling from British Columbia to the United States.
The data provided by Cascade Gateway, which also provides waiting times on the borders, shows that in February of this year so far, there have been an average of 3,500 cars heading to the United States through the border crossing of Peace Arch.
This is compared to nearly 5,000 per day last February.
“It is early,” Global News, Border Politics researcher, Western Washington University, Laurie Trautman told Global News.
“But the figures we can examine suggest approximately a 30% drop in southern trips for the month of February. This is certainly not all attributable to Canadians and we had this fairly large snowstorm in early February. It is therefore a little difficult to completely disentangle the impact of pricing threats.
“But if we combine the figures with what we see in the field, I think it somehow points to the impacts of these threats.”
Trautman also said that with business leaders and politicians who push Canadians to buy a room, this message could also have an impact.
Trump, who spoke to the media at the first meeting of his newly appointed cabinetHe was asked if he would plan to take a break or stop the prices given the border security measures recently implemented by the two neighbors of the United States.
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“I don’t stop prices,” Trump told journalists, adding that he was concerned about the fentanyl crisis in the United States.
However, US trade secretary Howard Lutnick, who was also present in Reunion, said Trump was talking about two distinct rates sets.
The first is the 25% rates linked to fentanyl in Canada and Mexico, which is expected to strike on March 4. The second set of prices is reciprocal rates on all American trade partners, which, according to Trump, will come into force on April 2.
However, just like Bridgitte Anderson, president and chief executive officer of the Break Vancouver Board of TradeTRAUTMAN should be caused by the damage.
“People are angry and rightly,” she said.
“And so even if April 2 arrives and we do not see any prices, I don’t know that it will return the needle to the place where it was. I think people will always have this persistent frustration. »»
Trautman said that part of the drop in border passages could be attributed to Trump’s comments that the 51st American state.
And although the data is taken with a grain of salt, Trautman added that it seems that Americans still go to Canada.
“Another really important component of this is the value of the Canadian dollar,” she added.
“Thus, each time the value of the Canadian dollar is lower or in a way changes, we see a corresponding change in cross -border trips. Obviously, for Americans, it becomes cheaper to travel to Canada, go out of dinner, go shopping, what do you have. And for Canadians, it becomes more expensive to go to the United States, which is also an important factor, especially here in our region, where a large part of the cross-border trip is discretionary. »»
Guy Occhiogrosso, president and chief executive officer of the Bellingham regional chamber of commerce, told Global News that they had no specific data to find out if Trump’s pricing threats have a direct impact on cross -border purchases but anecdotally, that is in fact wanting.
“If we listen to the number of Canadians who say` `we do not make purchases in the United States ” or,” we stop travel “or one of the variations of, once again, of this political protest, it would certainly indicate that there was and is and will be a decline,” said Occhiogrosso.
He added that they had seen fewer license plates from British Columbia in Bellingham car parks, but he also underlined the snowfall and the Canadian dollar down as contributory factors.
“It will be a comparison from weekends to week,” said Occhiogrosso.
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