Best-selling Canadian author Louise Penny has cancelled all U.S. promotional events for her latest book, The Black Wolf, in response to President Donald Trump’s escalating tariff war against her home country.

“I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but given the ongoing threat of an unprovoked trade war against Canada by the U.S. president, I do not feel I can enter the United States,” the Toronto-born, Quebec-based Penny said in an announcement posted to both Facebook and Instagram last week “At least not until that economic sword, that could throw hundreds of thousands of Canadians (as well as Americans) into poverty, is removed completely.”  

She added: “I have visited friends, made friends, personally and professionally, with so many Americans. I have such respect, affection, for them. For you. But…enough. What is happening is not just a potential economic catastrophe for Canada and so many other nations, it is a moral wound.”

Her decision comes in the wake of a burgeoning trade war between Canada and the U.S.. President Donald Trump has spent much of his brief second term threatening and imposing tariffs and making overtures about turning Canada into America’s 51st state. While Trump’s policy whims seem to change by the hour, the turmoil has led to fears of an economic recession in both countries.

In an interview with CBC’s Matt Galloway on Monday, Penny described the Trump regime as “such a parade of shame.” Still, the author made clear her decision wasn’t a political one.

“I don’t see this as political, really. I see this as moral. I see it as ethical, which has no boundaries,” said Penny. “If the Biden administration had done the same thing, I would have reacted in exactly the same way.”

She also revealed to Galloway that some details of The Black Wolf, the twentieth title in her Inspector Gamache mystery series, have turned out to be grimly prescient given Trump’s 51st-state barbs. In the book, an American group threatens to annex Canada for its wealth of natural resources.

“My fear when I wrote that was, ‘Have I gone too far? Are people going to believe this?’” said Penny. “And now, obviously, I don’t think I’ve gone far enough.”

The author’s new promotional schedule starts in Ottawa (instead of her previous plans to launch in Washington, D.C.) and ends at The Haskell Free Library and Opera House, a landmark resting on the Quebec-Vermont border.

“The Haskell was built by both countries as a symbol of our strong bonds of friendship,” Penny wrote in the announcement. “It is the physical reflection of what we believe. That what happens politically is one thing, and transitory.  What happens in our hearts is indestructible.”