Canadian Exports to the U.S. Drop to 68%, Accelerating Recent Diversification
The figure you've heard at conferences and read in policy documents is already out of date by several years. Canadian exports to the United States hit 68% of total trade as of January 2026, according to Visual Capitalist, not the 71.7% full-year 2025 figure, and nowhere near the 85% number that still circulates in presentations from the 2010s.
Nearly four percentage points dropped in barely more than a year. That is not a rounding error.
What the shift reveals
The trade story Bay Street tells itself is that Canada got nervous after the 2018 tariff threats, diversified, and won. The reality is more mechanical. The U.S. share fell because Canadian exporters found buyers elsewhere, not because U.S. demand collapsed. Asia now takes 11.2% of Canadian exports, Europe 12.2%, and the remaining share scatters across Latin America, the Middle East, and everywhere else. The total pie grew, but the U.S. slice shrank proportionally.
That distinction matters when you're building a business plan. A 68% concentration still means the U.S. market dominates, but it also means nearly a third of export revenue now flows elsewhere. If you run operations assuming 85% U.S. exposure, still the figure embedded in older risk models and trade finance templates, you're overstating your U.S. dependency and missing the actual shape of your customer base.
Alberta tells the other half of the story. Provincial exports to the U.S. sit at 85.4% of total as of 2025, per World's Top Exports. A barrel of oil moves by pipeline, not air freight. Saskatchewan and Alberta cannot diversify the way Ontario manufacturers can, because the capital is sunk and the buyer is next door. The national 68% average obscures that split: some sectors shifted, others didn't and can't.
Why the old number persists
The 85% figure was accurate in 2009. It appeared in parliamentary testimony, trade association reports, and pitch decks. It has since become embedded citation, a number people repeat because other credible people used it. The 71.7% figure was the full-year 2025 average. Both are now behind the curve.
This is how stale data becomes systemic risk. A lender pricing trade finance off an 85% U.S. assumption is mispricing concentration risk. A business forecasting revenue under the same model is building the wrong hedge. The gap between 68% and 85% is 17 percentage points of misallocated exposure.
The USMCA joint review date passed on July 1, 2026, per Global Affairs Canada, with no extension. The agreement now renews annually unless the parties vote to extend it for another 16 years. That review window, formerly a known constant, is now a rolling variable. You cannot treat U.S. market access as static while the legal framework underneath it requires annual re-confirmation.
What to do with it
If your business model, credit application, or investor deck still cites 85% or even 71.7%, update it. The current number is 68%, dated to January 2026. If your risk planning assumes higher U.S. concentration than you actually carry, you're either over-hedging or under-counting the non-U.S. exposures that already exist in your book.
For manufacturers and exporters with flexibility, the 68% figure is a ceiling. The decade-long drift suggests there's room to push it lower, provided the pipelines and customer relationships support it. For energy-heavy operations, the 68% national average is irrelevant, your number is Alberta's 85.4%, and your planning has to reflect that.
Trade concentration measured right means using current data instead of figures from 2009 and 2019. The widely cited figures are no longer accurate. Use the current ones, and build your next moves around what actually is, not what used to be.
The figure you've heard at conferences and read in policy documents is already out of date by several years. Canadian exports to the United States hit 68% of total trade as of January 2026, according to Visual Capitalist, not the 71.7% full-year 2025 figure, and nowhere near the 85% number that still circulates in presentations from the 2010s.
Nearly four percentage points dropped in barely more than a year. That is not a rounding error.
What the shift reveals
The trade story Bay Street tells itself is that Canada got nervous after the 2018 tariff threats, diversified, and won. The reality is more mechanical. The U.S. share fell because Canadian exporters found buyers elsewhere, not because U.S. demand collapsed. Asia now takes 11.2% of Canadian exports, Europe 12.2%, and the remaining share scatters across Latin America, the Middle East, and everywhere else. The total pie grew, but the U.S. slice shrank proportionally.
That distinction matters when you're building a business plan. A 68% concentration still means the U.S. market dominates, but it also means nearly a third of export revenue now flows elsewhere. If you run operations assuming 85% U.S. exposure, still the figure embedded in older risk models and trade finance templates, you're overstating your U.S. dependency and missing the actual shape of your customer base.
Alberta tells the other half of the story. Provincial exports to the U.S. sit at 85.4% of total as of 2025, per World's Top Exports. A barrel of oil moves by pipeline, not air freight. Saskatchewan and Alberta cannot diversify the way Ontario manufacturers can, because the capital is sunk and the buyer is next door. The national 68% average obscures that split: some sectors shifted, others didn't and can't.
Why the old number persists
The 85% figure was accurate in 2009. It appeared in parliamentary testimony, trade association reports, and pitch decks. It has since become embedded citation, a number people repeat because other credible people used it. The 71.7% figure was the full-year 2025 average. Both are now behind the curve.
This is how stale data becomes systemic risk. A lender pricing trade finance off an 85% U.S. assumption is mispricing concentration risk. A business forecasting revenue under the same model is building the wrong hedge. The gap between 68% and 85% is 17 percentage points of misallocated exposure.
The USMCA joint review date passed on July 1, 2026, per Global Affairs Canada, with no extension. The agreement now renews annually unless the parties vote to extend it for another 16 years. That review window, formerly a known constant, is now a rolling variable. You cannot treat U.S. market access as static while the legal framework underneath it requires annual re-confirmation.
What to do with it
If your business model, credit application, or investor deck still cites 85% or even 71.7%, update it. The current number is 68%, dated to January 2026. If your risk planning assumes higher U.S. concentration than you actually carry, you're either over-hedging or under-counting the non-U.S. exposures that already exist in your book.
For manufacturers and exporters with flexibility, the 68% figure is a ceiling. The decade-long drift suggests there's room to push it lower, provided the pipelines and customer relationships support it. For energy-heavy operations, the 68% national average is irrelevant, your number is Alberta's 85.4%, and your planning has to reflect that.
Trade concentration measured right means using current data instead of figures from 2009 and 2019. The widely cited figures are no longer accurate. Use the current ones, and build your next moves around what actually is, not what used to be.
Sources
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