Europeans also have to apply for an electronic thing to go to Canada.

Canada has required its own eTA garbage for EU citizens since late 2016 or so.

But only when flying commercial.

It's funny how everyone framed this as US vs. EU. It really didn't have to be framed that way.

The US launched the first violation of visa free travel agreements, which the EU had to accept but could not have done first.

Given a world where they would have had to back down on US/Canada, it would have been a diplomatic disaster to go through and try to justify why they are not going to back down with the other countries.

It was only recently that Americans could visit Canada without a passport. It's amazing how every country has clamped down.

That was a post-9/11 thing, and came from the US side as I recall. Used to be able to enter with just a driver's license. Then you could only do that at the land border. Then it was passport only.

And at each point the volume of hostile tone from US homeland security guards has increased. It can be quite stressful crossing at times and I generally avoid it, even though I'm only 45 minutes from the border.

Our family in northern maine used to go shopping in Canada every few weekends to abuse the weak Canadian Dollar, but then those damn terrorists came in through the exact border crossing we would use and wouldn't you know it, crossings got a little less liberal after that.

Americans can still visit Canada without a passport by land as long as they can satisfy proof of citizenship.

It’s technically the US that requires Americans to have a US passport to re-enter USA. Not sure what they do, can’t refuse a US citizen entry into USA but I guess they could give you a hard time.

On a work trip to the US recently I lost my passport for a bit and spent some time frantically searching what would happen if I showed up at a land crossing back into Canada without it. TLDR they would have given me a hard time, put me through the ringer, but ultimately would have to let me back in assuming all my other ID, references, etc. check out. I'm sure it would be highly unpleasant.

Airlines of course would imply have returned to board me without it.

Luckily I recovered it (bless you, friendly helpful people at the Sioux Falls airport) before my return flight.

(Replacing it would have had me stuck there for many days and requiring me to travel to Minneapolis or Chicago and beg for mercy at the consulate.)