Why I won't be attending PyCon US this year

I normally don't talk about politics here, but as I write this the US has started a trade war with Canada (which is partially paused for a month, but that doesn't remove the threat). It is so infuriating and upsetting that I will be skipping PyCon US entirely for the first time since 2003 to avoid giving any money to the US economy as a tourist (on top of just not feeling welcome in a state that voted in Donald, let alone in the US overall when Donald won the popular vote).

We have been told this is over fentanyl, but the amount brought into the US through Canada is less than 1%. Plus we spent CAD $1.3 billion on upping our border security and appointing a fentanyl czar that has led to a 97% decrease from Dec 2024 to Jan 2025. And all of this without the US doing something equivalent to try and lower the amount of illegal guns flowing into Canada.

No, this actually seems to be about trying to cripple our economy to annex Canada (no joke). The leader of one of the world's largest, most powerful armies simply cannot stop talking about how they want to annex Canada, which is not comforting (this is why Canadians have not found the "51st state" comment a joke whenever anyone makes it). Donald also can't seem to stand calling our prime minister by his proper title which is very disrespectful (hence why I keep using "Donald" in this post; I also refuse to use their preferred pronouns since trans lives matter and I doubt Donald would use anyone's preferred pronouns if they happened to disagree with them).

As Warren Buffett said, "Tariffs are ... an act of war, to some degree". As such, I just can't bring myself to voluntarily visit a country for fun that has started an economic war with my home country. This will be the first time I don't attend PyCon US physically or virtually since the conference was first named that in 2003, so I'm not making this decision lightly.

To be clear, I don't blame any Americans who voted for someone other than Donald. I view this as a decision of the current US government and the people who voted for Donald since they said, quite plainly on the campaign trail, that they were going to come after Canada.

So that means, for the foreseeable future, I will hope to see people at Python conferences and core dev sprints outside the US. It's a bit tricky to travel so far when our kid is still so young (not even 1 year old as I write this), but hopefully I can make something work at least on occasion to still see my friends in the Python community in person (luckily PyCascades is scheduled to be held in Vancouver in 2026).

Once all the tariffs are completely repealed (pauses don't count as that just makes it a looming threat), visiting states that didn't vote for Donald will be considered. But if I'm being honest, the way Canadians are reacting makes it feel like the Canada/US relationship has been damaged for at least a generation without a massive campaign on the US side to try and make amends. And that means any travel south of the border is going to be curtailed for a very long time.