- President Donald Trump wants to impose new tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China.
- Many states had one of those three countries as their biggest trade partner in 2023.
- The expected tariffs may raise prices and lead to retaliatory trade moves.
President Donald Trump is planning to levy new tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China. Those countries are big international trade partners for many US states.
Trump listed on Thursday the “massive subsidies that we’re giving to Canada and to Mexico in the form of deficits” as one of the reasons for the tariffs.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Friday that Trump will implement the 10% tariffs on China and the 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada as soon as Saturday.
Canada was the largest goods import trade partner for nearly half of the 50 states based on 2023 Census Bureau data. You can hover over the map below to see more about the top import trade partners for each state.
Trump talked about potential tariff plans before his second presidency started. One of Trump’s Truth Social posts from November said the tariffs on Canada and Mexico would be in effect “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”
If Trump does implement his tariff plans, it could lead to retaliatory tariffs from the targeted countries, potentially harming US exports. Canada was the largest export trade partner for 36 states in 2023, while Mexico was the main export trade partner for several other states.
The new tariffs would likely affect US consumers.
“We’ll see businesses deciding whether they’re going to absorb those extra costs or they’re going to pass them through to consumers,” Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, previously told Business Insider. “Given that consumer spending has been fairly buoyant and that the economy is doing well, we would expect them to pass a lot of it through to consumers.”
Tiff Macklem, the governor of the Bank of Canada, recently talked about the economic effects of a trade conflict between the US and Canada.
“A long-lasting and broad-based trade conflict would badly hurt economic activity in Canada,” Macklem, the governor at the Bank of Canada, said this week. “At the same time, the higher cost of imported goods will put direct upward pressure on inflation.”
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