It is not a very smooth track towards the goal of diversifying Canada’s international customer base.
Ever since Donald Trump imposed tariffs on a wide range of Canadian goods, we have been pushing to find alternate markets for those products. And, to a degree, we have had some success. It’s a long road to reduce our reliance on American buyers – we ship about 70 per cent of our exports south. But, in the first half of the year, exporters were making headway on this front.
And then came August. Exports to countries other than the US fell more than 8 per cent in the month. At the same exports to the U.S. rose by roughly eight percentage points.
A key factor in this switch may be tariff avoidance. The White House announced a new round of tariffs to go into effect at the end of August so buyers and sellers were pushing out additional product ahead of the deadline. But it was dramatic – it expanded our trade surplus with the U.S. from $6 billion to $11 billion, the biggest increase in our history.
— For more than 50 years, Paul Martin has specialized in coverage of the business and political scenes. His career has spanned radio, television and print and electronic media.
