Recently Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. No doubt Trudeau was concerned because Trump has threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico if they do not stem the flow of illegal migrants and drugs into the United States.

And, as was also brought up, the U.S. trade deficit with Canada is estimated at more than $100 billion Trump said.

I’m not an expert in international trade, but I do have access to the internet and gathered as much information as I could find regarding the U.S. and Canada’s trade relationship, and found a few other tidbits that I thought were interesting.

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According to The Western Producer, Canada has built a sizable agricultural trade balance surplus with the United States to the tune of $18.3 billion in 2022, up from $1.8 billion in 1993.

It is hard to find any information on the trade balance between the two countries past 2022, but the threat of tariffs is making Canada beef and canola producers extremely nervous, especially in Alberta.

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According to an article from the CBC, “In 2023, Alberta exported nearly half of its food and agriculture products to the U.S., at a value of $8.79B. That figure includes 90 percent of the province’s bovine meat, valued at $2.9B, alongside 100 percent of the province’s live cattle exports.

On the crop side, 85 percent of Alberta’s canola was sent to the U.S. last year.”

For Canada as a whole: On the beef side, the Canadian beef industry expects $2 billion in live cattle exports and at least $4 billion in beef exports to the U.S. over 2024, Dennis Laycraft, executive vice-president of the Canadian Cattle Association told The Western Producer. Canada is also a large import market for U.S. beef and cattle, he noted. Around $500 million in live cattle and about $1.5 billion in beef imports from the U.S. will come into Canada this year, he added.

I think the Canadians have far more reason to panic in the wake of potential tariff threats that U.S. producers because our neighbors to the north have other sticky trade issues in the works. One of those issues is China, which has been blocking beef shipments from Canadian processing plants for almost three years. The refusal of Canada beef was due to an atypical case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy was found on an Alberta farm in December 2021.

China has also started an anti-dumping investigation into Canadian canola imports. From what I’ve been reading that was in response to Canada’s August decision to raise tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles.

And you can bet Canada is also concerned about exports to the U.S. as President Joe Biden’s Department of Agriculture finalized the rules for the “Product of USA” labels for meat, poultry and eggs, which applies to animals born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the U.S. The regulations is to take effect on 1, 2026.

We know that tariffs also could negatively impact U.S. producers if countries retaliate against us, which happened with Trump’s tariffs during his first term.

But I think Trump knows he has Canada on the ropes as far as it’s export market is concerned and will use that as leverage to boost U.S. exports.

I couldn’t find any more information about the conversation that Trudeau had with Trump at the dinner, so I will just have to wait until he gets into office to see what happens. Although, Trump did suggest that Canada join the United States as the 51st state.