Does the US ‘need' Canada?
US President Donald Trump had one big question on his mind as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney headed to Washington last month.
'I very much want to work with him, but cannot understand one simple TRUTH,' Trump said in a social media post, reiterating several ways he believes Canada benefits unfairly from its trade relationship with the United States.
The president also repeated his incorrect claim that the United States is 'subsidising' Canada to the tune of US$200bil, alluding to the country's trade deficit with Canada, which is the value of what the United States imports minus its exports.
In fact, the trade deficit last year was US$63.3bil, according to US data. And if Canada's energy exports were stripped out, it turns into a trade surplus.
For Trump, it all boils down to one point: does the United States need Canada?
'We don't need their cars, we don't need their energy, we don't need their lumber, we don't need ANYTHING they have, other than their friendship,' he said in the social media post.
But industry groups say differently.
The auto industries in Canada and the United States have become highly interconnected over the past three decades – especially between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, the busiest commercial crossing along the border – as the countries knocked down trade barriers.
In 2023, the US imported about 1.24 million vehicles from Canada, the fourth-highest tally behind Mexico, Japan and South Korea.
The US is the world's top oil producer, but its refineries rely on crude oil, a variety that Canada specialises in extracting.
Retooling US refineries to eliminate the need for crude oil would cost billions and companies are not willing to make those investments, especially because of the uncertainty over Trump's trade policies.
Besides oil, Canada in 2023 supplied nearly 100% of the natural gas and 85% of the electrical energy imported by the US, according to Canada's energy regulator.
Canada also provides more than one-fourth of the uranium the United States imports to run nuclear reactors, federal data shows, more than any other nation.
Howard Lutnick, the US Commerce Secretary, is investigating whether lumber imports are a threat to national security.
In 2021, the United States purchased US$28bil worth of lumber from Canada, nearly half of lumber imports.
American industry groups have estimated that the tariffs on lumber that Trump has introduced will increase home costs by an average of about US$9,000.
For now, the US lumber industry cannot meet the demand from homebuilders, according to a recent analysis by Fastmarkets, and it would take the country at least 10 years to whittle down its need for imported lumber.
Farmers this year were reminded of the US agriculture industry's reliance on Canadian imports of key chemical ingredients used in fertiliser, like potassium-rich minerals called potash.
The United States imports 85% of its potash from Canada, which is the world's largest exporter of the minerals.
But Trump's tariffs on Canada will make potash more expensive for farmers to import and the increases could be passed down to grocery store shoppers, according to the Fertilizer Institute, a US industry group.
Trump says the US needs Canada's friendship.
Many Canadians say forget about it.
The usually warm relationship between the two countries is in tatters, with Canada invoking a defensive tactic used in hockey – 'elbows up' – as its posture against Trump's economic attacks and threats to make Canada a US state.
Toronto residents Douglas Bloomfield (right) and son Phoenix holding a Canadian flag and an ice hockey stick in front of the White House as a protest against US tariffs. — AP
Canadians have taken to boycotting American-made products and shirking summer travel to the US, with the number of flights scheduled to the country from Canada down by 21%, a New York Times analysis shows. — ©2025 New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times
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