Fact check: Trump makes more false claims about Canada in advance of meeting with prime minister
By Daniel Dale, CNN
Washington (CNN) — President Donald Trump has been making false claims about Canada for months. He did it again in the days leading up to his scheduled Tuesday meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney.
In an interview that aired Sunday on NBC, Trump made Canada’s military spending sound much smaller than it is and made the US trade deficit with Canada sound much bigger than it is. And in a late-April interview with The Atlantic, he exaggerated the extent of Canada’s trade reliance on the US.
Here is a fact check of these claims – and a bunch of others Trump has made about Canada this year.
Canada’s military spending
Trump, who has spoken repeatedly of his desire to somehow turn Canada into the 51st US state, said in the NBC interview: “And by the way, Canada, they spend less money on military than practically any nation in the world. They pay NATO less than any nation.”
Facts First: It’s not true that Canada is the lowest military spender in NATO or “practically” the world’s lowest military spender. Official NATO estimates show that, of the 31 alliance members with a standing army, Canada had the eighth-highest defense spending in absolute terms in 2024; it had the fifth-lowest defense spending as a percentage of gross domestic product – low, but not lower “than any nation.” The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks global military spending, reported that Canada was the world’s 16th-highest 2024 military spender in absolute terms out of more than 150 countries for which the institute had data.
Trump’s claim is still wrong if he happened to be speaking literally about members’ direct contributions to NATO’s organizational budget. Canada is currently the 6th-largest contributor to NATO’s “common funding” pool.
The US trade deficit with Canada
Trump has repeatedly said the US has a “$200 billion” trade deficit with Canada. He used a familiar vaguer formulation in the NBC interview, claiming, “We subsidize Canada to the tune of $200 billion a year.”
Facts First: Trump’s claim is not even close to true. Official US statistics show the 2024 deficit with Canada in goods and services trade was $35.7 billion. Even if you only count trade in goods and ignore the services trade at which the US excels, the deficit was $70.6 billion. And even if he was this time using the word “subsidize” to describe unspecified other things in addition to the trade deficit, there is no basis for the claim.
The US-Canada trade relationship
Trump, talking about Canada, claimed to The Atlantic that “they do 95% of their business with us.”
Facts First: There’s no doubt Canada is heavily reliant on its trade relationship with the US, but Trump’s “95%” figure is a significant exaggeration. Canada’s federal statistics agency reported in February: “In 2024, the United States was the destination for 75.9% of Canada’s total exports, and was the source of 62.2% of Canada’s total imports.”
Other Trump false claims about Canada
Here are some other false claims about Canada that Trump has made in 2025:
Canada’s defense spending: Trump falsely claimed in January that Canada spends “less than 1%” of GDP on defense. The official NATO estimates show Canada spent an estimated 1.37% of GDP on defense in 2024, up from an estimated 1.31% in 2023 and from 1.2% in 2022. That’s all short of NATO’s 2% target, which Carney has vowed to meet by 2030, but not as low as Trump claimed.
Canadians’ views on becoming the 51st state: Trump falsely claimed to reporters in January that “the people of Canada like” his idea of Canada joining the US. In fact, poll after poll has shown the idea is massively unpopular with the people of Canada. It has been vehemently rejected by Carney and other Canadian political leaders from left to right.
Canada’s tariffs in general: Trump falsely claimed in a social media post in March that Canada is “ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.” In fact, Canada has long had relatively low tariffs, though it has this year announced a series of new retaliatory tariffs on the US in direct response to Trump’s own new tariffs on Canada. Canada was just 102nd-highest on a World Bank list of 137 countries’ trade-weighted average tariff rates in 2022, the last year for which the data is available – and had a lower average (1.37%) than the United States (1.49%) that year, the most recent for which the data is available.
Canada’s dairy tariffs and former President Joe Biden: Trump falsely claimed to reporters in March that he had Canada’s dairy-tariff situation “well taken care of” at the time he left office the first time, “but under Biden, they just kept raising it.” In fact, Canada did not raise its dairy tariffs during the Biden administration. The tariffs Trump is denouncing were left in place by the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement he signed in 2018, though that agreement did secure greater US access to the Canadian dairy market.
Trump has also persistently failed to mention that Canada’s high dairy tariffs only kick in after the US has hit a certain Trump-negotiated quantity of tariff-free dairy sales to Canada each year – and as the US dairy industry acknowledges, the US is not hitting its zero-tariff maximum in any category of dairy product, so the tariffs aren’t being applied.
Exemptions from Canada’s dairy tariffs: Trump falsely claimed in April that Canada has low tariffs on only one carton of milk imported from the US, but then imposes massive tariffs on all other US milk imports. In reality, Canada guaranteed in the USMCA that tens of thousands of metric tons of imported US milk per year, not merely a single carton, will face zero tariffs.
Canada’s imports of US agricultural products: Trump, speaking of Canada, claimed in February that “they don’t take our agricultural product for the most part”; he mentioned dairy, then said, “A little bit they do, but not much.” This is false even with Trump’s qualifiers. Canada was the world’s second-largest buyer of US agricultural exports in 2024, according to the US Department of Agriculture, purchasing about $28.4 billion worth.
While Canada does limit foreign access to its dairy, egg and poultry markets in particular, these are exceptions rather than the rule. The US Department of Agriculture notes on its website that “almost all” US agricultural exports to Canada face zero tariffs or quotas, and that “Canada consistently ranks among our top markets for agricultural product exports, representing one of our most significant and reliable trading partners.”
Canada and US banks: Trump falsely claimed in both February and March that Canada prohibits US banks. While Canada’s tight regulations have discouraged many foreign banks from opening retail branches there, Canada does not forbid these banks; in fact, US banks have been operating in Canada for well over a century.
The Canadian Bankers Association industry group said in a February statement that “there are 16 US-based bank subsidiaries and branches with around C$113 billion in assets currently operating in Canada” and that “U.S. banks now make up approximately half of all foreign bank assets in Canada.”
Canada, Russia and China: Trump falsely claimed in January that Canada joining the US would secure Canada “from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them.” Canada has never been surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships, let alone been “constantly” surrounded. In fact, a smattering of Russian and Chinese military ships and jets, as well as Chinese research vessels viewed with suspicion by Canada and the US, have been occasionally spotted in recent years in the vicinity of the US state of Alaska – and have been monitored or intercepted by the Canadian and US militaries.
The Canadian government did warn in December that among the “potential threats” in its Arctic region were “increased Russian activity in Canadian air approaches” and “China’s regular deployment of dual-use – having both research and military application – research vessels and surveillance platforms to collect data.” But that’s not the same as being “surrounded.”
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