Data from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics indicates that full shipping container crossings into Montana for the first 11 months of the year fell 21% from its 30-year peak in 2024. Over the same period, individual crossings dropped 29%. The drop comes after years of sharp increases in freight and individual crossings coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The decline in visitation is well beyond what could be explained by exchange rates, the Canadian economy, or other typical factors,” said Jeffery Michael, director of the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research. “It’s clearly related to political tensions between the two countries.”
Michael said he’s seen consistent decreases in both freight and passenger flow at Montana’s ports of entry since February, the month after President Donald Trump took office for his second term. He also said the trend accelerated after the Trump administration announced tariffs in April.
The number of people entering the U.S. at Montana ports dropped to just 200,000 in the first 11 months of 2020, then 163,000 in 2021 — the years of the COVID-19 pandemic border closures — but rebounded to just over one million in 2024. However, they then fell to 736,000 in 2025, a 29% decline, the lowest mark in over 30 years outside of the pandemic.
Racene Friede, president and CEO of Glacier Country Tourism, which promotes tourism in Northwestern Montana, said in an interview with Montana Free Press that the decline in tourism traffic had started after “friction points” in political relations between Canada and the U.S.
“We actually don’t anticipate changing in the near term,” she said.
Friede said the downturn has not affected all visitors equally. Higher-end international travel has remained strong, while other segments have been more volatile. “The luxury market is doing very well,” she said. She also noted uncertainty around the tourism effect of a new international visitor park fee, which imposes a $100 surcharge on visitors to 11 U.S. parks, including Yellowstone and Glacier.
Tourism groups say the decline in crossings is also reflected in spending data.
Brad Niva, president and CEO of Visit Big Sky, which promotes the southwest Montana resort community, said Visa credit card data indicates that Canadian spending in Big Sky is down by nearly 17% from January through September of 2025, even as spending from other international markets increased.
“Canada is our biggest foreign market,” Niva said. “All of our other countries are increasing, except Canada.”
Niva said Big Sky has been less affected than communities closer to the border but still reflects the broader trend. “Are we affected by the Canadian market? Yes — we’ve seen declines in cards, spending and people,” he said.
The drop in visitors from Canada was accompanied by a large drop in container traffic entering at Montana ports.
In total, Montana ports of entry processed about 275,000 full shipping containers in the first 11 months of 2025, down from almost 350,000 for the same period of 2024. The decline reversed several years of growth and exceeded any single-year drop recorded since at least the mid-1990s.
Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term in early 2025, his administration threatened and then imposed 25 percent duties on many Canadian goods, with a ten percent levy on energy. Trump has also repeatedly floated the idea of making Canada the “51st state” to eliminate the tariffs, a notion that has infuriated many Canadian politicians and citizens.
Brigitta Miranda-Freer, executive director of the Montana World Trade Center, told Montana Free Press that unpredictable trade policy, including tariffs announced “by tweet,” has hurt demand for both exports from Montana and imports from Canada. She also said that many consumers outside of the U.S. seem to be choosing to skip American-made products out of national pride.
“There is a lot of anti-American sentiment in other countries in regards to how we are approaching trade with our long-standing partners,” Miranda-Freer said.
State Sen. Susan Webber, a Browning Democrat whose district includes the Canada-adjacent Blackfeet Reservation, said the effects of higher trade costs are being felt directly by communities along the border, particularly on the reservation, which has two ports of entry into Canada. “People who used to go into Canada for hay, tractor parts and lumber have stopped doing it,” Webber said. Webber is a plaintiff in a suit alleging that the tariffs violate the Jay Treaty. That suit is currently awaiting a ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Webber said the reduction in cross-border trade has disrupted long-standing economic relationships between nearby Canadian and U.S. communities.
“We had a pretty good relationship with producers and services in Canada because we are so close,” Webber said.
Tourism officials said they’ve heard from Canadian visitors that the downturn is not rooted in local relationships or community level issues — and said they’d love to see Canadians return in greater numbers.
“Everyone we talk to says it isn’t the people,” Friede said. “I like to think of it as, ‘Our parents aren’t getting along, but we’re getting along great.’ ” ...
