President Trump had a big question in his mind when Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney went to Washington last week.
“I really want to work with him, but I can’t understand a simple truth,” said Mr. Trump in one Social Media PostRepeating different ways in which he believes that Canada benefits unfairly from his trade relationship with the United States.
The president also repeated his incorrect claim that the United States Canada ‘subsidy’ at an amount of $ 200 billion, referring to the country deficit With Canada, the value of what the United States minus imports his export.
According to the American data, the trade deficit was in fact $ 63.3 billion last year. And when the energy export of Canada is undressed, it turns into an exception.
For Mr Trump it all comes down to one point: do the United States need Canada?
Mr. Trump’s sounding answer is no, and he has imposed rates on many Canadian goods.
“We don’t need their cars, we don’t need their energy, we don’t need their wood, we don’t need anything they have, except their friendship,” he said in the social media post.
But industrial groups and the government say differently.
The US need Canada to make cars
The car industry in Canada and the United States have become strongly connected for the past three decades – especially between Detroit, Mich., And Windsor, Ontario, the busiest commercial intersection along the border – while the countries landed.
In this way intertwined, the supply chains are that car parts can cross the border, no less than eight times during the production process. That made it difficult to define what a car import is.
In 2023, the United States imported around 1.24 million vehicles from Canada, the fourth highest count behind Mexico, Japan and South Korea.
The US needs the energy of Canada
The United States are the world’s top oil producer, but many of its refineries are partly dependent on crude oil, a variety that Canada specializes in extracting. Give us back Refineries To eliminate the need for crude oil, billions would cost And companies are not willing to make those investments, especially because of the uncertainty about Mr Trump’s trade policy.
According to the US Energy Information Administration, sixty percent of the crude oil came from the United States from the United States from Canada.
In addition to oil, Canada supplied almost 100 percent of natural gas and 85 percent of the electrical energy imported by the United States in 2023, according to Canada’s Energy Regulator. Canadian electricity is especially important for feeding New England.
Canada also offers more than a fourth of the uranium that the import of the United States can carry out nuclear reactors, federal facts Shows, a higher share than any other country.
The US needs the wood from Canada
Howard Lutnick, the American secretary of the trade, is investigating whether Mr.Mentport is A threat to national security.
The figures from the past year were available in 2021, the United States bought $ 28 billion in wood from Canada, which represents almost half of the import of wood.
The American industrial groups have estimated that the rates on wood that Mr Trump has introduced will increase the home costs by an average of around $ 9,000.
For now, the wood industry of the United States cannot meet the demand of home builders, according to a recent analysis Due to fastmarkets, a research company, and it would cost the country for at least 10 years to throw its need for imported wood.
American farmers need Canada to plant their crops
Farmers starting this year of the planting season were reminded of the dependence on the American agricultural industry on the Canadian import of important chemical ingredients used in fertilizers, such as the potassium -rich minerals called Potash.
The United States imports 85 percent of its Potas from Canada, the world’s largest exporter of the minerals.
But Mr Trump’s rates on Canada will make Potas more expensive for farmers to import and the increases can be passed on to supermarket shoppers, according to the Fertilizer Institute, an American industrial group. The next largest worldwide exporters in Potas are Russia and Wit -Russia.
Trump says that the US needs the friendship of Canada. Many Canadians say forget it.
The mostly warm relationship between the two countries is in roofs, where Canada evokes a defensive tactic in hockey – “elbows” – As his attitude against the economic attacks and threats of Mr. Trump to make Canada an American state.
Canadians have taken Boycotting American products and the summer trips to the United States, with the number of flights planned to the country from Canada with 21 percent, one New York Times -analysis shows.
A quirky symbol of the special bond of the countries has also suffered. The United States has limited Canadian access to the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, a historic site that extends across the border between Quebec and Vermont. American officials said the move was needed to stop ‘drug traders and smugglers’.
Despite the icy relations, Mr Carney and Mr. Trump had a warm exchange for news media cameras in the Oval Office last week.
Mr. Trump described his “Love” for Canada And longing for continuous friendship. Yet he repeated his desire for Canada to be part of the United States.
Mr Carney quickly pushed back to make it clear that his country was not for sale.
Mr. Trump has not admitted: “Never say never!”
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