While U.S. policy is affecting retailers all over North America, President Donald Trump’s threats to turn Canada into the 51st state have made it especially personal to communities along the border. Canadian independent booksellers are seeing more traffic and sales, but it’s a mixed bag for U.S. stores.

PW spoke with two dozen booksellers on both sides of the border who concur that, as Jessica Walker, owner of Munro’s Books in Victoria, B.C., put it, “Canadian national pride has been re-invigorated.” Pro-Canadian sentiment is now a key component of marketing; the website for Biblioasis Bookshop in Windsor, Ont., across the border from Detroit, for instance, now boasts a digital shelf of “#ProudlyCanadian titles.”

While revenue at Biblioasis is down, as employment in the local automobile industry is tanking due to Trump’s tariffs, Walker says sales are up “double digits” at Munro’s, thanks to Canadians canceling U.S. vacations and visiting Victoria instead. In addition to books, customers are snapping up bumper stickers and enamel pins featuring the image of a Canada goose and the words, “Back Off, Eh!”

Julie Hillier-Vrolyk, owner of the Book Keeper in Sarnia, Ont., six miles from Port Huron, Mich., says her customers are “elbows up,” with many telling her they’ve switched to shopping local and Canadian rather than online.

Americans are still crossing the border, with mixed results. Laura McFadden, owner of Old Niagara Bookshop in Niagara Falls, Ont., says sales are great, but adds, “It’s been the most unpleasant season I’ve ever had.” While her regulars from the U.S. have been cordial, an influx of new U.S. customers have proven “very resentful, demanding, and unpleasant.”

In contrast, Meghan Desjardins, lead bookseller at River Bookshop in Amherstburg, Ont., south of Detroit, says there are more Canadian customers, but also “noticeably” more U.S. customers. The Americans, Desjardins says, “are vocal about purposefully shopping in Canada. Some are coming in and saying they’d never been to Canada before and this is a good time to go. We feel so supported by our American neighbors.”

Lucy Hoblyn, co-owner of Brome Lake Books in Knowlton, Que., says, “It’s been a crazy summer,” with a surge in Americans visiting the store, “probably because of the café downstairs that Louise Penny opened in June.” When Hillary Clinton stopped by in July, some in her entourage wore T-shirts printed with an apology in multiple languages. “A lot of people are coming up to take a break from the craziness,” Hoblyn says.

Every Canadian bookseller PW spoke with emphasized that they bear no ill will toward Americans. Brome Lake and Phoenix Books in Burlington, Vt., are partnering on a November ticketed event featuring Penny at the Haskell Free Library, whose building straddles the border of Quebec and Vermont. Brome Lake will sell the Canadian editions of Penny’s latest, Black Wolf, and Phoenix will sell the U.S. edition. This is the closest Penny will come to the U.S. this fall after canceling the U.S. leg of her tour in response to Trump’s tariffs.

Multiple booksellers on the U.S. side mentioned that sales to Canadian customers are down. Sales at Phoenix are way up overall following its move to a better location last June, but the number of Canadian customers has plummeted since January. Jeff Morrow, owner of the Book Corner on the U.S. side of Niagara Falls, says, “I had a lot of Canadian business, but since Trump came back into office, I’ve lost 75% of that.”

Several other U.S. border booksellers, including Drury Lane Books in Grand Marais, Minn., and Merit Badge Books in Hamburg, N.Y., note that while sales to Canadian customers are down at nearby businesses, theirs are up. Merit Badge owner Heather Jackson ascribes this to her “obviously left-leaning bookstore” being considered “a safe space.” And Gwen Danfelt, Drury Lane’s manager, says the 25-year-old store “is known as a progressive bookstore in a progressive town in a progressive state that Canadians still want to come to.”

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