That was fast.

“It’s like a light switch,” confessed the Queen Street store mom. “And it just switched off. I mean, last week.”

She echoes what others are seeing, worrying about and sometimes articulating to a wandering columnist and his fur-challenged pooch. Traffic’s thinned. The yellow and green licence plates are fewer. Sales have trailed off. Ugh.

Look at border traffic. Wait times to cross from Trumpistan into Canada last weekend were down to three minutes on the nearby bridges.

Canadians may be shunning American produce, retailers and booze — for reasons of patriotism. But why are Americans suddenly afraid to burst across?

I asked a few who did. And got answers like this …

“It was clear sailing until we talked to the border guy,” Jamie from Ohio told me. “He said we shouldn’t even think about bringing anything back. And that we’d need valid ID to go home. Plus, he was a miserable SOB. Never seen that before. More like some soldier or bad cop.”

Everyone says it. The border’s hardened.

The orange guy has turned the world on its noggin. Last week, big auto tariffs to match the steel and aluminum levies. This week came “Liberation Day” with reciprocity tariffs. The stock market’s been having a cow. The benchmark S&P sailed into correction territory (a drop of at least 10 per cent), and a bear market could be on the way (a 20 per cent plunge) because of, well, you know.

The policy of tariffs and protectionism was last practised leading up to the Dirty Thirties. Look how that turned out. A bad economy was forced into a global depression as the U.S. ignited a trade war.

Only the terrible stimulus of a world war got us out of it. This is failed economics, yet here we are. Worry on Queen. Lonely bridges. Anxiety over what’s next.

Here’s how one of my fav Bay Street economists, Derek Holt, put it to clients of his bank last week: “Greater government interference in commerce is about to be unleashed and in ways that create untold consequences for the economy, for financial markets, for supply chains, for job security facing millions of workers, and for inflation. Protectionist walls of the sort that Trump is setting out to build haven’t been seen since the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Act.”

So, what comes next? What should you do?

Undoubtedly, things will get worse in the next few weeks as layoffs happen, confidence wanes and the economy shrinks a little. Once the election’s over, serious talks can begin to try to resurrect Canada’s favoured trading status with the Americans. That will take time. Meanwhile financial markets will probably sell off.

A recession is at least six months of negative growth, and it’s coming. So trim expenses and (of course) shop Canadian. Locally.

As for your retirement accounts, TFSAs, non-registered investments and kids’ RESPs, just chill. A balanced and diversified portfolio should have a third of its growth assets (hopefully all ETFs, not individual stocks) in the Canadian market, a third international and a third U.S. Keep it that way. America will not be punished if you sell American assets. But you will.

The prospects of growth in the States are large once Trump stops breaking things. Corporate and personal taxes will be cut, and the tariffs that hurt us are designed to put America First. So a good defence is to stay invested.

If you are tempted to sell because you’re scared of the next few months or years, don’t. Never, ever sell into a storm. Don’t take paper losses and make them real. And if you’ve been sitting on cash waiting for things to get cheaper, here she be.

Now, go buy something.