The Trump administration's import ban on a tiny proportion of Canadian imports into the U.S. came into effect on September 29, ramping up the showboating between the two countries in what is an increasingly contentious trade war.
The outright bans on certain products, including alcohol, dairy products and motorcycles, constitute a first – as opposed to tariffs as high as 50% announced earlier. The New York Times says they are a sign of how much the relationship between two formerly close political and economic allies has unraveled.
Canada remains, for now, U.S.’s second-largest trading partner after Mexico, and the biggest supplier of U.S. energy imports, including crude oil, natural gas and electricity. In turn, the U.S. is Canada’s largest export market, although the proportion of total Canadian exports that went to the U.S. dropped to 68% in the first half of 2026, down from 72% in 2025, when nearly half of its imports were American.
The Times says that more than two dozen U.S. states also count Canada as their biggest export market, many of them considered key battlegrounds in the upcoming mid-term elections.
On September 24, New York Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand called the import ban and tariffs on Canadian products “a bad deal for New York families,” and called for passage of her legislation, the Banning Antiquated Duties and Delivering Equitable American Levies (BAD DEAL) Act, which would repeal all tariffs levied under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 and refund Americans for all duties paid under this authority.
