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A worker removes bottles of American-made Jack Daniel’s whiskey from a shelf at a liquor store in Toronto in April. (Christopher Katsarov Luna/Bloomberg)

The Trump administration is putting pressure on Canada to end a boycott of U.S.-made alcohol that’s hurting distillers. Most Canadians want their governments to hold firm.��

Several Canadian provinces, including Ontario and Quebec,��pulled��U.S. wine and spirits from stores after President Donald Trump started a trade war last year, costing American booze-makers millions of dollars in sales.

Almost three-quarters of Canadians still support that initiative, while 20% think it’s time for provinces to resume selling American alcohol, according to a late December poll by Nanos Research Group for Bloomberg News.

The hard line against U.S. products is one of the ways Canadians are expressing their fury at Trump’s tactics, which have included tariffs on steel and aluminum, threatening to��crush��the Canadian automotive industry with import taxes and saying he would use “economic force” to make Canada the 51st state. Public opinion surveys show widespread��opposition��in Canada to joining the U.S.��

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Bottles of local wine at a Liquor Control Board of Ontario store in Toronto. (Christopher Katsarov Luna/Bloomberg)

Kentucky‑based Brown‑Forman Corp., the maker of Jack Daniel’s, said Canadian organic net sales plummeted more than 60% in the first half of the 2026 fiscal year. CEO Lawson Whiting has blasted the boycott as “worse than a tariff” and a “very disproportionate response,” while noting that Canada accounts for only about 1% of total sales.

Jim Beam��paused production��at its main U.S. distillery after slumping demand led to a whiskey glut. The company didn’t link the move to the loss of the Canadian market, but the Distilled Spirits Council has��reported��steep declines in exports to Canada, as well as to the European Union, U.K. and Japan.��

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Bottles of Jim Beam Bourbon on a conveyor belt inside the bottling plant at the Jim Beam Bourbon Distillery in Clermont, Ky. (Luke Sharrett/Getty Images)

Minnesota’s Phillips Distilling Co. took drastic measures in response to a decline of about 70% in Canadian sales by moving some production of its Sour Puss liquor — popular among young Canadian adults — to a contract manufacturer in Montreal to get around the ban.��

“It was very frustrating. If you take away 15% of our branded business, that’s a big problem,” CEO Andrew England said in an interview.��

“I have no idea how this is going to settle out with the U.S. and Canada,” he added, “which is why we need to operate separately in Canada, and just get on with it.”

In October, U.S. exports of wine and distilled spirits to Canada fell 84% and 56%, respectively, from a year earlier, according to the��U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Last month, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer warned that lifting provincial booze bans is a key condition for securing a successful review of the U.S.‑Mexico‑Canada Agreement this year. Preserving the trade deal is crucial for Canada’s economy. Many products that are shipped under its rules are still exempt from U.S. tariffs. Without that exemption, Canadian exporters would face a much higher effective tariff rate.

Stalled Trade Talks

Canadian and U.S. negotiators were��close to an agreement��to reduce tariffs on steel and aluminum, but Trump abruptly ended those talks in late October, saying he was angry about an��anti-tariff television commercial��sponsored by the Ontario government of Premier Doug Ford.��

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Mark Carney and Donald Trump meet in the Oval Office on May 6, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

In the wake of those events, Canadians became even more determined to avoid U.S. products, according to a Nanos survey conducted in late November and early December.��

About 71% said they were “less likely” to purchase U.S.-made goods than before the tariff war, a rise of eight percentage points from May, Nanos said. Another 11% said they were “somewhat less likely” to do so. Opposition to American products was more prevalent in provinces more affected by U.S. sectoral tariffs on autos, steel, aluminum and lumber, such as Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.��

Nanos also found relatively high levels of approval for Ford’s combative approach to tariffs — not only the booze ban but��walking away��from a deal with Elon Musk’s Starlink and publicly pressing Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to keep counter-tariffs on U.S. goods. Carney has dropped some, but not all, of those levies.��

Canada was the No. 1 export market by far for U.S. wine in 2024, but the two nations’ bilateral trade in wine has plunged 91% since then, according to a��complaint��submitted by the U.S. wine industry to the U.S. Trade Representative.��

The Vancouver International Wine Festival in March will feature just six U.S. wineries this year, less than half the usual number over the past decade, according to the festival’s website. It’s a big event, drawing almost 20,000 people last year. That’s “due entirely to the current ban on U.S. alcohol in British Columbia,” according to festival spokesperson Meredith Elliott. American wineries are unable to sell their products through BC’s provincial liquor agency.��

Some Canadians are also staying away from U.S. travel destinations. Residents took 28% fewer trips by car or plane to the U.S. last year, according to��Statistics Canada��data released Jan. 12.��

A��report��produced in December by the minority of the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee said Trump’s trade attacks have “disrupted diplomatic, economic and trade relations between the United States and Canada — which in turn has hurt the U.S. businesses that depend on visitors from Canada.”��

Allyson Myers, head of sales and marketing for Burlington, Vt.-based Lake Champlain Chocolates, said there has been a decline in traffic across all four of its stores. “So I’d say it is possible that fewer Canadians coming across the border may be contributing to less visitors and less tourists in the area.”

Burlington, which is about a two-hour drive south of Montreal, temporarily renamed a commercial strip “Rue Canada Street” in the hope that Canadians would feel more welcomed. “We’d love to have the Canadians back,” said Myers.