CANADA–US TRADE WAR
Canada ↔ United States North American Tariffs Index — 2025–2026
REWIND THE TRADE WAR
Drag the slider, click the arrow buttons, or click any card to travel through time. The map, rates, sectors, and prices update across the site.
Trade talks stall; auto tariffs due to double Jan. 1
After a G20 trade ministers' meeting, U.S. Trade Representative Greer says a handful of issues are "quite difficult to resolve" and the U.S. will not drop existing or proposed tariffs. Canada says it will negotiate in good faith. The announced doubling of U.S. auto and auto-parts tariffs to 50% is set for January 1, 2027.
TRADE WAR INDEX
A branded composite for this site — not an official economic indicator. Built from coverage, rates, affected value, retaliation, duration, and sector breadth.
Site-branded composite index — not an official economic indicator. Recalculated from static inputs for visualization.
THE TARIFF WAR MAP
Animated trade flows between Canada and the U.S. Line thickness scales with trade value. Click a product icon on the map (or a chip below) for tariff details.
Scroll to zoom · drag to pan when zoomed in
MAKE IT YOURS — THEN SHARE IT
This isn't a generic news brief. Build your tariff impact: pick where you live, fill a real shopping basket, and save it in this browser. When the trade war moves, your dashboard updates — and one link lets anyone open the exact same view.
Copy a link with your region + basket baked in. Friends open it and land right here — no account needed. Saved locally for when you come back.
📍 WHERE DO YOU LIVE?
Your province or state shapes which sectors hit hardest. Saved in this browser and included when you share.
Select a region above to see its most exposed sectors.
🛒 YOUR SHOPPING BASKET
Add the goods you actually buy. Quantities and prices stay on this device and travel with your share link.
Note: Estimates use product-specific pass-through rates. Actual prices vary by retailer, supply chain, and competition. This is an educational model.
Done personalizing? Send your impact link so others can see the same numbers for your region and basket.
THE SECTOR BATTLEFIELD
Every major industry in the Canada–U.S. trade relationship. Click any sector to see the supply chain and full impact details.
WHAT DOES A TARIFF ACTUALLY DO?
Pick a product and watch it travel from Canadian producer to U.S. consumer — and see exactly where the tariff hits.
Refrigerator
Appliances
25% counter-tariff on U.S.-made refrigeration appliances (HS 8418) under Canada’s September 8, 2026 list
⚠ Important: The tariff is legally paid by the U.S. importer, not the Canadian exporter or the foreign government. The economic burden shifts based on market conditions and contract terms.
WHO ACTUALLY PAYS?
Legal incidence (who writes the cheque to customs) is usually the importer. Economic incidence (who ultimately bears the cost) depends on market power and elasticities — and can be shared across the chain.
SUPPLY-CHAIN SPAGHETTI
A car part can cross the border 6–8 times before you drive it home
WHAT CAN CANADA BUY INSTEAD?
Select a U.S. product category and compare alternative suppliers by illustrative price, capacity, distance, and tariff.
Previously sourced heavily from U.S. mills for Canadian construction and autos
| Supplier | Price index | Capacity | Distance | Tariff | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
🇨🇦Canadian | 102vs US=100 | High | 400 km | 0% | Domestic supply; Hamilton & Sault Ste. Marie |
🇲🇽Mexican | 98vs US=100 | Medium | 3,200 km | 0% | CUSMA-eligible; capacity constraints |
🇪🇺European | 110vs US=100 | High | 6,000 km | 0% | CETA preferential access |
🇯🇵Japanese | 115vs US=100 | Medium | 9,000 km | 0% | CPTPP partner |
🇰🇷South Korean | 108vs US=100 | Medium | 9,500 km | 0% | CKFTA partner |
🇨🇳Chinese | 88vs US=100 | Very high | 10,500 km | 25% | Lower price; dump/AD risk and geopolitics |
Price/capacity/distance are illustrative indices for exploration — not live quotes.
WHAT HAPPENS IF TARIFFS GO HIGHER?
⚠ These are simplified model estimates for educational purposes only. Not economic predictions or official forecasts. Charts update live with your tariff mix. Based on trade elasticity research (Romalis 2007, Broda & Weinstein 2006). Based on empirical pass-through rates observed between roughly 10% and 30% tariff levels. Above that, this model tapers off rather than scaling linearly. The retaliation term uses Canada's counter-tariff rate, not the U.S. rate — both sliders drive this model.
Curve scales your current US/CA ratio from 0% → 100%. Move either slider and the whole path updates.
Free trade vs your scenario vs full mix
Canada vs U.S. revenue under each scenario
JOBS ON THE LINE
💡 Adjusting these sliders live updates the employment estimates below and keeps the What-If Simulator above in sync.
Canada's export-dependent economy means U.S. tariffs hit jobs directly, while Canada's own counter-tariffs offer a smaller offsetting boost to import-competing industries. Both are model estimates — not forecasts — driven by the 🇺🇸 25% US tariff and the 🇨🇦 25% Canadian counter-tariff set in the What-If Simulator above.
⚠ Based on Trevor Tombe's estimate that the August 2026 U.S. tariff round (a ~2.5-point rise in Canada's average effective export tariff) put ~87,200 Canadian jobs at risk. Calibrated for tariff levels roughly in the 10%-30% range; above that, this model tapers off rather than scaling linearly. Both sliders drive this model — the U.S. tariff rate drives export-side job losses, Canada's counter-tariff rate drives import-competing job protection.
Model estimate, not an official forecast. Driven by the 🇺🇸 25% US tariff — Canada sends a far larger share of its exports south than the US sends north, so this is usually the dominant term.
Model estimate, not an official forecast. Driven by the 🇨🇦 25% counter-tariff — reflects Canadian producers (steel, aluminum, lumber) facing less U.S. competition.
Model estimate, not an official forecast. Sums export losses and counter-tariff protection (see research below).
Estimates ~87,200 Canadian jobs are at risk from the August 2026 U.S. Section 338 tariffs alone — about 52,000 directly at exporters plus 35,000 at suppliers and service providers — concentrated in Ontario, Quebec, and B.C., enough to push the national unemployment rate from 6.4% to roughly 6.8%.
Estimates the cumulative labour-market hit from all U.S. tariffs and Canadian retaliation to date at roughly 25,000-40,000 jobs by the end of 2027, alongside a 1.0%-1.5% drag on economic output — a more modest, slower-building estimate than sector-specific analyses.
Notes that some Canadian sectors — paper, wood, steel, and aluminum — should benefit as counter-tariffs reduce U.S. import competition and encourage domestic substitution, even though economists say this won't offset the broader net drag from retaliation on the economy overall.
Ottawa paired its countermeasures with a $7.5B support package for affected workers and businesses, intended to cushion — though not fully offset — job losses in exposed industries.
Simplified linear-with-taper model for the Canadian side, loosely calibrated against economist Trevor Tombe's (University of Calgary) August 2026 input-output analysis of the Section 338 tariffs. Not a forecast — see citedStudies for the real research this is loosely calibrated against.
Factual baseline: workers in sectors facing U.S. tariffs
Not a model output — a straight sum of affected-worker estimates across every sector tracked in the Sector Battlefield. Click an industry below to isolate its worker count.
THE DOMINO EFFECT
One tariff doesn't stay in customs. Pick a sector and watch the chain reaction from border duty to supply-chain reorganization.
YOU ARE THE PRIME MINISTER
The U.S. has imposed 50% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum. Your cabinet is demanding action. Canadian manufacturers are under severe pressure. The public is watching. What do you do?
THE DATA BEHIND EVERYTHING
Where the numbers come from, how the models work, and what this site is — and isn't — claiming. Page viewed October 7, 2026. Dataset snapshot labeled 2026-10-06.
Primary sources
Methodology
- →Shopping-basket and product-flow prices use product-specific passThroughRate assumptions, not observed scanner data.
- →What-if charts use simplified linear elasticities for teaching; they are labeled as model estimates, not forecasts.
- →The Trade War Index is a site-branded composite of weighted factors (coverage, rates, value, retaliation, duration, sectors) — not an official indicator.
- →Sector tiles show the headline rate on the listed products in each sector, not an average across all trade. Only about 5% of Canadian exports to the U.S. are on the Section 338 lists, and most trade remains tariff-free under CUSMA.
- →Alternative-supplier tables use illustrative price/capacity/distance indices for UX, not live procurement quotes.
Canada publishes detailed tariff-item lists with 8-digit HS codes, descriptions, and rates. A future product explorer could map those schedules line-by-line; this site currently uses sector aggregates for clarity.