Trump’s impact on Canadian trade

June 1, 2025

key points from this story:

• Trump’s policies disrupt traditional US-Canada ties
• Canada seeks diversified international trade partners
• Throne Speech signals trade as a government priority
• King Charles highlights Canada’s global trade readiness
• Provinces work to remove interprovincial trade barriers
• Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Manitoba sign trade agreements

There is an old saying about ‘every cloud having a silver lining’ and that seems to be true even in the case of the blustering cloud of disruptive policy and regressive thinking that is American president Donald Trump. While Trump continues an obvious effort to drag the US back to the 1950’s and in the process destroy long term relationships with the country’s neighbours and allies, it has meant Canada has to begin to grow beyond a perhaps all too great a reliance on its often navel-gazing neighbour. On a national scale building trade relationship with countries other than the US has always been a positive thing relating to the idea of not putting all of one’s eggs in a single basket. Diversified markets are a natural protection to trade. The ‘Trump-effect’ should have multiple countries seeking new trade relationships, and that should mean a willingness to sit down and get deals done. Those deals need to be a priority from Prime Minister Mark Carney and his government. And, it at least sounded like it was a priority in the recent Throne Speech.