INTERNATIONAL FALLS, Minn. >> When Nancy Imhof goes to the grocery store in International Falls, she glances at the bumpers of vehicles in the parking lot.

“I still look for Canadian license plates,” Imhof said. “There’s a few, not a lot, but there’s a few.”

Since President Donald Trump took office Jan. 20, he’s announced, and then delayed, significant tariffs on Canadian products and threatened to make Canada the “51st state,” prompting some Canadian citizens to boycott the U.S.

Now, their reluctance to visit their neighbor to the south is showing in the border crossing data at two northern Minnesota ports of entry.

From January through May, 25% fewer travelers entered the U.S. from Canada at International Falls compared to the same period last year, and 23% fewer travelers entered the country at the Grand Portage Port of Entry, according to data tracked by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. That includes those entering as pedestrians or in passenger vehicles and trucks.Across the entire U.S. northern border, travelers crossing into the U.S. by those methods are down about 18% compared to last year.

“We’ve definitely noticed the street traffic being less,” said Imhof, who owns the clothing store Mason’s on Main in International Falls, just three and a half blocks from the border crossing — a bridge over the Rainy River to neighboring Fort Frances, Ontario.

“If people aren’t shopping, it’s more to defend their government,” said Imhof, who was born in Canada.

According to border entry data, monthly crossings into the U.S. at Grand Portage and International Falls in 2023 and 2024 were almost always higher compared to the previous year.

The COVID-19 pandemic made for a slow 2022, but Kjersti Vick, a spokesperson for Visit Cook County, said Grand Portage crossings were close to returning to pre-pandemic levels.

Then came 2025.

“It’s definitely noticeable,” Vick said. “We have definitely noticed a decrease.”

At Grand Portage, April saw the biggest dip with 6,800 travelers entering the country, down 38% compared to April 2024.

With fewer travelers on the road, Vick said gas stations, dining and retail are most affected.

Elliot Noyce, co-owner of the Angry Trout Cafe in Grand Marais, Minn., said customer counts are down this year, but since the restaurant doesn’t track where customers come from, he said it’s hard to gauge why.

Around Grand Marais and Cook County, Noyce said there’s uncertainty.

“It’s sort of a thing that’s out of our control, so we don’t really give a lot of mind space to it,” she said.

Visit Cook County is running an advertising campaign inviting Canadian citizens to visit, Vick said.

“We want to make sure that they know that they’re welcome and that we love seeing them,” she said. “Because we consider them our neighbors.”

In International Falls, Imhof said the city and Fort Frances are intertwined. If one community doesn’t have something, the other might. For example, she said she is the only place in either town that rents tuxedos.

That interconnection makes cooling tensions between the two countries even more important.

“We just hope that this kind of blows over, or it comes to some sort of workable solution. … People who don’t live in border communities probably don’t understand just how close the relationship is — both directions,” Imhof said.