US President Donald Trump has said that his looming tariff on Canadian goods is required to take action on migrants and drugs entering the United States through its northern border.
He has also described billions of dollars in daily border trade as an American subsidy and claimed that Canada would not “be viable as a country” without it.
According to Trump, Canada’s economic dependence on the United States is one of the reasons why it should become the 51st American state.
The AFP investigated some of the President’s claims about Canada, including the wrong bilateral economic relationship and the situation on the border.
American supply of Canadian imports
Trump claimed that Canada gets 95 percent of its “product” from the United States.
According to Statistics Canada, for Canada’s imported goods, this figure is incorrect.
The federal agency said in 2024, 62.2 percent of the total imports of Canada came from the United States.
But, as an economist at Toronto University, Joseph Steinberg said, “Many people who buy Canadian consumers are domesticly produced,” so Trump’s 95 percent claim can only be filtered reliably if it is believed that he was talking about imports.
“If we focus on imports, what is the US percentage 95 percent? Not quite, although it is actually a high number,” Sayinberg said.
Statistics Canada also reported that 75.9 percent of the country’s exports went to the United States last year.
US trade deficit
During the question-answer of the presence of his January World Economic Forum, Trump claimed that the United States had a $ 200 billion or $ 250 billion trade deficit with Canada.
“This is an inflated number,” said Stineberg.
The United States Trade Representative and the US Census Bureau placed the trade deficit with Canada at $ 63.3 billion at the end of 2024, while the Statistics Canada described its surplus with the United States as $ 102.3 billion ($ 70.3 billion).
Steinberg said that trade shortage is not subsidy and data does not confirm that the United States is carrying forward Canada’s economy.
“International trade is a mutually beneficial transaction,” he said. “The United States pays Canada for products, it would not pay Canada for those products if it was not felt that it was worth it in this case.”
He said that American oil procurement from Canada is a main driver of trade deficit.
American bank in canada
“American banks are not allowed to trade in Canada,” Trump said in a social media post last month.
This claim is also wrong.
Foreign banks, including US financial institutions, are regulated by the Federal Bank Act of Canada.
“There are US-based bank assistants and branches, of which $ 113 billion can be operated in Canada,” Canadian Bankers Association said on 3 February on X.
These include JP Morgan Chase, Citibank and Bank of America, most of which are offices in major Canadian cities.
Border security
The Trump administration has said that improvement in border security is a central issue in its relations with Canada.
Trump has claimed that unspecified migrants and drugs are flowing on the border in large numbers.
Kelly Sunderberg, a crimeist at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said there is no evidence to return Trump’s claims to Fentanell, as data suggests that the killer enters the United States less than one percent of the opioid.
According to the United States Customs and Border Petrol (CBP) Agency, more than 21,800 pounds (9,900 kg) of Fentaenil was intercepted by agents during the 2024 financial year, 43 pounds were seized near the northern border with Canada.
CBP data also told the US border patrol agents that 23,721 people illegally crossed the Canadian limit in FY 2024.
Last year at the national level, the CBP agents came in contact with more than 1.5 million unspent migrants.
“Canada is more in danger than the United States, from Canada for most things compared to the United States – guns, drugs (and) illegal immigrants,” said by Sunderberg.
He said that more comfortable drug laws in Canada can introduce an inflated meaning of illegal substances entering the United States.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
