Anxious and angry, Canadians are souring on the U.S. over Trump’s tariffs, survey finds

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Dawn O’Leary misses Diet Coke the most. Her favourite pop is among the list of American goods and services she gave up even before U.S. President Donald Trump flip-flopped on his tariff threat last week. The 71-year-old has sold her U.S. stocks and dumped Netflix. She doesn’t only buy Canadian – she also refuses to purchase any product that’s made in Canada for a U.S. company.

“Unfortunately, I have to do the research for that on Google,” says Ms. O’Leary, the owner of Dragonluck Kennels in Stittsville, Ont., on feeling forced to use the American search engine. “I am not happy about that.”

But as current emotions go, unhappy doesn’t begin to cover it. When the history buff thinks about Canada’s broken relationship with its once closest ally and how much worse everything might get, she says, “I am angry. I am scared. And I’m trying to plan.”

The majority of Canadians share her sentiments, according to a new national survey. The poll conducted by Nanos Research for The Globe and Mail found that more than two-thirds of Canadians say they are feeling anxious about the future because of tensions with the United States, and nearly one-quarter say they are experiencing financial stress.

The continuing trade dispute, along with aggressive talk of annexation, have clearly soured how Canadians feel about their previously congenial neighbour. In the survey, 90 per cent of Canadians said their view of the U.S. had worsened in the last year. And when asked to name specific emotions describing what they were feeling, the top two answers, by far, were pessimism and anger.

This deeply negative perspective will factor into the coming federal election, expected to be called this month, when the key issue will be how to manage the economic fallout of a looming trade war, and the continuing hostility of Mr. Trump and his administration.

But even if the two countries eventually return to cordial relations, the negative sentiment Canadians now feel will be difficult to reverse, said Nik Nanos, the chief data scientist at Nanos Research.

“It’s like your best friend telling you they don’t want to be your friend anymore,” he said. “Maybe you can get over it, but you can’t unsay what has been said. And I think for many Canadians, what’s come out of the U.S. can’t be unsaid.”

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The Nanos poll was conducted during the first week of March, overlapping with the official start of steep tariffs on Canadian imports that the U.S. government had been threatening for weeks. Two days later, as Ottawa began implementing trade countermeasures, Mr. Trump delayed the tariffs on most imports for another month.

On the positive side, the survey results support the rise in national pride observed anecdotally across the country since Mr. Trump began threatening to make Canada the “51st state.” More than half of Canadians said their view of their own country had improved or somewhat improved compared with 12 months ago.

And they reported a similar increase in patriotic sentiment around them: 40 per cent of respondents said their neighbours loved Canada more compared with a year ago – double the number who said they believed people in their community loved the country less.

“I’m 58 and I’ve never seen such national pride,” said Steve Keyes, a licensed paralegal in London, Ont. “The only saving grace to this whole thing is that it’s energized the entire country. It’s made me extremely proud to be a Canadian – something I have never really thought about. Now I pretty much think about it every day.”

Dealing with tension every day, however, is taking a significant toll on some Canadians, the survey suggests. For slightly more than one in 10 respondents, the dispute with the United States is causing shorter tempers and trouble sleeping. One in three Canadians said they have started avoiding news or social media altogether.

As well, Mr. Nanos noted, young Canadians were significantly more likely than older people to express pessimism rather than anger over the situation with the United States. “For young people,” he said, “this is another example of something going wrong in the world.”

Mr. Keyes’s 28-year-old daughter, Haylee, says that in addition to the anger she feels “at Trump and the people who enable him,” the situation is definitely making her anxious about jobs and the future. “I want to have kids eventually,” says Ms. Keyes, a fundraising director for a non-profit, “but do I want to bring kids into this craziness?”

At the same time, she also feels proud of the way Canadians have been taking a united stand against that current “craziness” – cancelling trips south, dumping any subscriptions that send money across the border, and gathering online to exchange shopping tips for Canadian alternatives for everything from baking chocolate and water filters to cleaning supplies and clothing.

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Last week, for example, Mike Morrison, the founder of SocialNext, a marketing event company, posted a photo on Facebook of a virtually empty Walmart on an early weekday evening in Saint John. He’d gone for some gluten-free items, Mr. Morrison explained, “but I left because I felt like a scab.”

Mr. Keyes and his two adult daughters have already cancelled their annual vacation to Florida, and Ms. Keyes is now going to Montreal for a weekend away with her fiancé, and not Vegas. “I feel like we need to defend our sovereignty,” she said. By taking a stand, she’s also expressing her opposition to the larger values and policies of the current U.S. administration. “Why would I want to go and contribute to their economy?” she asked. “There are going to be many, many millions of people harmed by the policies.”

To cope, Canadian still need their rah-rah moments. One was provided last week, when Nova Scotia actor and broadcaster Jeff Douglas, who played “Joe” in the “I am Canadian” beer commercial 25 years ago, released an updated version of the popular ad on social media, without any corporate sponsorship. “We are not the 51st of anything,” he hollers defiantly in the sequel.

Back in Stittsville, Ms. O’Leary says she’ll continue to stand guard for her country in every way she can, while enjoying her Canadian iced tea and lemonade, and hoping her country practises kindness and solidarity for whatever happens next. As a gesture, she’s offered a 10-per-cent discount to clients who have booked dogs but decide to cancel their trips to the United States.

“I wanted to let them know I support their decision,” Ms. O’Leary says – and that we’re all in this together.

The hybrid telephone and online random survey included 1,001 Canadians, contacted between Feb. 28 and March 5, and a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Editor’s note: (March 12, 2025): This article has been corrected to state that President Donald Trump delayed the tariffs on most Canadian imports two days after announcing them. The story originally said that he delayed them three days later. (This note corrects the original note published March 11, 2025.)