Florida tourism dips as Canadian visitors drop 14 percent

( NewsNation ) — President Trump’s trade feud with Canada is heating up, but Canadians appear to be cooling on his home state.

Florida saw an estimated 1.68 million Canadian visitors in the first half of 2026, about 270,000 fewer than a year earlier, according to Visit Florida . That 14 percent decline comes after a nearly 7 percent drop in Canadian visitors in 2025.

The Canadian pullback helped push total visitors to Florida down 1.4 percent through the first six months of this year, after the state welcomed the most visitors ever last year.

Florida’s tourism marketing agency doesn’t offer an explanation for the Canadian drop in its latest estimates , but the trend has coincided with escalating U.S.-Canada tensions since Trump returned to office in early 2025.

Trump signed an executive order Thursday changing the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” after accusing Canada of taking advantage of the U.S. on trade and defense.

The move is hardly an olive branch to Canadian travelers, who are increasingly choosing to vacation in their own country or overseas. Canadians made roughly 25 percent fewer trips to the U.S. last year and spent about $2.3 billion less, according to Statistics Canada .

In Las Vegas, Canadian visits fell more than 17 percent in 2025, while New York state saw a 26 percent drop.

Florida’s 2025 decline was less severe in percentage terms, but it still stands out because Canada is by far the state’s largest source of international visitors.

Florida saw about 3.2 million Canadian visitors last year, down from around 3.4 million in 2024, according to Visit Florida. Even so, Canadians accounted for 25 percent of the state’s visitors from outside the U.S., more than double the 10 percent share from Brazil, Florida’s second-largest international market.

In the first six months of this year, the Sunshine State welcomed about 400,000 fewer Canadian visitors than in the same period in 2024 before trade tensions intensified.

The decline is notable, but scale matters too. More than 90 percent of the state’s 73.5 million visitors in the first half of 2026 came from other parts of the U.S. Another 4.5 million came from overseas, roughly 6 percent of the total.

Canadian visitors made up the remaining 2.3 percent, down from 2.6 percent over the same period in 2025.