But this year, the packages have slowed. The mailbox stores have quieted. And Canadians say politics and pride are keeping them away.
“For a lot of people, your president is not their favorite, and they’ve chosen to stay home instead,” said Colleen Clark, 48, a Canadian who lives just 10 minutes from the border, and has stopped coming. “The whole Trump idea — the building the wall, the this and the that. Canadians are a bit more open and inclusive, we’re not into building walls.”
Why did the Canadian cross the border? That’s a complex calculation on America’s northern edge from here in Blaine to the tip of Maine because the variables are always in flux, as currency exchange rates, online shopping trends — and now the uncertainties of international politics and national pride — filter into the mix.
Rarely have things been so tense. This year, in the midst of a trade dispute, President Donald Trump called Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, “dishonest and weak,” and threatened punitive action against Canada, one of the United States’ biggest trading partners. Canadian shoppers have not forgotten, according to recent surveys in Canada and interviews with dozens of people on both sides of the border.
And the stores of Blaine, only 30 miles from Canada’s third-largest city, Vancouver, have felt the effect.
“We’re not getting the packages that we usually do,” said Denise Burrow, who has worked in the mailbox business for more than 20 years.
Clark said hard-nosed economics was reason enough to stay home. She is executive director of the Chamber of Commerce in Langley, British Columbia, and said the tense back and forth between the countries over tariffs and the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement have roiled the businesses she represents, which include dairy farmers and manufacturers.
Her decision to stop coming to the United States was partly in solidarity with them. “I wanted to put my money where my mouth is,” she said.
Recent surveys of Canadians suggest that such feelings run deep, concluding that shoppers intend to keep more of their money at home this year. A study by the Whatcom Council of Governments found that Canadians spent less time in the United States this year than they did five years ago, and of those who did travel there, fewer ventured much past the border.
It was too early to know for sure whether the shifting mood was having a tangible effect on the economy of border towns in the northern United States, economists said. Overall, Washington state’s economy has expanded with job and population growth, and some of the strongest growth has occurred north of Seattle, near the Canadian border. Any downturn in visits from Canadians would be muted by that.
And the statistics on border crossings have been mixed — with some months up from 2017 and others down. The most recent figures available, for September, showed 32,000 fewer people in passenger vehicles entering the United States from Canada into Blaine, a 4.6 percent drop from the same month last year.
But Michael LeBlanc, a senior retail adviser at the Retail Council of Canada, a trade group, said Trump had stirred Canadian pride.
“They were generally insulted by the tone,” he said of Canadians, “and it kind of put steel in their spines; ‘Well, I’m just not going to shop in America.'”
Steve Hagen, who runs a mailbox store in Blaine, said he was closely watching every shift of mood for portents of what may come. At Hagen’s of Blaine, which includes a play area for children who have crossed the border with their parents, Hagen said October business fell sharply. It picked up after Thanksgiving, though, so the overall picture still seemed unclear.
What Canadians think about America as a whole can sometimes be distinct from what they feel about their closest American towns. In towns like Blaine, some Canadian customers live only a few blocks from the cluster of mailbox stores. (Regulations are part of the mix too: Depending on how long Canadians are in the United States and how much money they have spent, they are supposed to declare purchases from other places and pay Canadian taxes.)
“For Canadians, Whatcom County is a kind of near-abroad — it’s seen as not quite American,” Tom Roehl, a professor of international economics at Western Washington University in Bellingham, said of the county closest to the Canadian border, which includes Blaine. “We kind of take advantage of that.”
Shane Miller, a computer programmer from Canada who bought specialty Christmas decorations at Hagen’s on a recent day, said he was traveling across the border less frequently. But he said there were products that cannot be found in Canada, or that carry such huge shipping and customs costs as to make him drive over.
“I’m not going to lie,” said Miller, 45. “A lot of Canadians, myself included, are not huge fans of the political status of the U.S. right now, but I don’t let that stop me — though I might think twice about taking a long vacation down south or something.”
Bargains can be alluring, too.
“I still like to shop a lot,” said Tina Olexa, 54, a marketing trainer from Surrey, southeast of Vancouver.
Olexa thinks all the bluster about pride and nationhood, on both sides of the border, may fade. “There are people who say, “Well, I’m not going to support the United States,’ and I think, ‘Well, how long is that going to last?'” she said.
Shannon Newson, who lives 30 minutes from the United States in the suburbs of Vancouver, is still coming.
She said the Pacific Northwest still feels a little like Canada to her — fern-green and wet and not all that friendly to Trump either. Washington state went strongly for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Whatcom County delivered one of her most lopsided majorities. “If I lived somewhere where I had to go into a red state to shop, I might think differently,” Newson said on a recent morning as she embarked on a two-day shopping trip in the United States.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.