Duty-free shops in Quebec are struggling to stay in business amid a fallout from the escalating Canada-U.S. trade war.

Duty-free location across the rest of Canada are in the same situation as fewer Canadians travel across the border by car and shop on the way home, according to multiple reports.

Barbara Barrett, executive-director for the Frontier Duty-Free Association, told The Montreal Gazette that the group’s 32 shops across the country, including eight in Quebec, are in “survival mode.”

In Quebec and beyond, store owners report dramatic declines in sales since U.S. President Donald Trump escalated trade tensions and floated inflammatory rhetoric about Canada. Sales have plummeted by as much as 80% in some areas, with stores scrambling to stay afloat.

Éric Lapointe, who has worked at a duty-free store in Quebec’s Beauce region since he was a student in 1990, now owns the shop. In his 35 years at the store, Lapointe told the Gazette, has never witnessed a downturn this severe — excluding the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re victims in all of this, and there is nothing we can do about it,” he told the Gazette.

“Our Canadian customers have disappeared.”

According to Barrett, sales activity has declined precipitously.

“It just dropped off the cliff,” she told CP. “These are family-owned businesses that have been an integral part of the Canadian tourism fabric, operating as pillars of border communities for decades.

“They now face the risk of permanent closure.”

During a news conference in Ottawa, the group urged political parties to introduce measures to help the stores get through their crisis, the Gazette reported.

Photo: Frontier Duty-Free Association

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