Guest Writer: Borders, tourists and the Trump travel effect

The Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University published an infographic early in January that showed an overall 36% decrease in passenger vehicle traffic coming from British Columbia through Whatcom County land entry points last year. It totalled nearly a million fewer vehicles than in 2024. The negative percentages began, perhaps not surprisingly, in February, the month after Trump retook office. They never went positive again.

BPRI Director Laurie Trautman, in an interview with CTV News, cited the successive impact of “51st state” rhetoric, threatened tariffs and increased border hassles as among the factors that soured our neighbors to the north on heading south.