Trump tariff chaos: are BoC rate moves ahead?
That still places Canada below the approximate 7% average US tariff on imports from all countries — but the shift is meaningful, and it arrives against a housing market already subdued by 18 months of trade uncertainty.
Who bears the brunt
The hardest-hit sectors under the new regime, according to RBC Economics, are plastic products, electrical machinery, furniture, and wood products.
Regionally, the economic impact falls heaviest on Quebec, British Columbia, and Ontario. Canada accounts for approximately 3.7% of total US imports of the targeted products, while the US absorbs 81% of Canada’s exports in those same categories, leaving Canadian exporters with substantially fewer alternative markets than their American counterparts.
RBC Economics was direct about the commercial reality facing affected exporters: “purchases of these products from Canada would be prohibitively expensive” under the new 50% rate, given that tariffs of that magnitude apply exclusively to Canada.
At the same time, the bank tempered alarm at the macro level, noting that “the size of the tariffs is likely not large enough to derail Canada’s economic growth backdrop.”
