Inaccurate list of Canadian tariffs circulates amid US trade war

"You guys don't realize already the tariffs that Canada places on the United States," the speaker in a video posted to X on March 4, 2025 says. "Take a look at those numbers and see if that's fair."

The user goes on to display a list of fees Canada supposedly imposes on American products, including tariffs exceeding 200 percent for dairy, poultry, sugar and peanut butter and levies above 100 percent for tobacco, rice, vegetables and fish.

Variations of the list -- sometimes referencing products such as cars, televisions and aluminum --  have circulated since at least late January 2025 on Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok, after Trump first threatened a 25 percent tariff on Canadian goods entering the United States.

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Screenshot of an Instagram post taken March 5, 2025

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Screenshot of an X post taken March 5, 2025

The American duties on Canadian products went into effect on March 4 with Trump saying the tariffs are necessary to force action on migrants and drugs entering the United States through its northern border, despite data showing the volume is nominal.

Trump has also claimed Canada and the US have an unequal trade relationship that needs to be rectified (archived here).

Canada announced (archived here) an initial round of retaliatory tariffs on March 4 and many of the products discussed in the social media posts -- with the exception of cars and aluminum -- were included in the country's list of items which would now be subject to a 25 percent fee if they were coming from the United States.

But the social media posts are looking at the prior rates and Ottawa-based international trade expert Peter Clark (archived here) said these were shared for 2025 by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) which classifies many products as tariff-free if they are coming from the United States (archived here).

"You look up any manufactured goods from the United States, the rate of duty is free," he said.

Clark explained that while there are exceptions for some agricultural products, duty-free trade for most products between the United States and Canada had been the status quo since the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement in 1989 (archived here). This was superseded when Mexico joined the economic fold in 1994 with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and was updated again with USMCA negotiated during Trump's first presidency (archived here and here).

For each item on its list, CBSA includes a percentage for the tariff applied as well as any exemptions. Clark said any product marked with "UST" or "MXT" referred to tariff exemptions that were a part of USMCA.

AFP examined the document to ascertain whether tariffs were applied to items referenced in the social media posts:

• Barley seed, UST: Free
• Raw sugar, UST: Free
• Peanut butter, UST: Free
• Footwear, UST: Free
• Bovine meat, UST: Free
• Rice, UST: Free
• Cars, UST: Free
• Vacuum cleaners, UST: Free
• Aluminum, UST: Free
• Tobacco, UST: Free

AFP also compared these rates to those recorded in the US International Trade Administration tariff database (archived here) and received the same results showing no import fees on all the products.

The numbers used in the recent social media posts appear to recycle similar false claims about Canadian tariffs which predate the current trade dispute.

Supply management

The highest supposed tariffs discussed in the posts were dairy and poultry products, which some users claimed were charged at over 200 percent. Clark explained that Canada has supply management regulations for these types of products, meaning that after an import quota has been reached for a specific exporter, they are charged a much steeper fee (archived here). These measures are allowed under USMCA.

Bruce Muirhead, a history professor at the University of Waterloo (archived here), said Canada instigates supply management quotas on particular items intending to prevent agricultural surpluses within the country's market.

"As its name suggests, they manage supply," he said.

For example, CBSA's list shows milk has an initial tariff of 7.5 percent (with exemptions again for USMCA signatories) but above a certain quantity that could rise to 241 percent for any exporter. This is still less than the 270 percent claimed in the post.

Trump has referenced the 270 percent tariff on milk for years without context, including in claims he made during his first term at the 2018 G7 summit. 

Muirhead said other products mentioned in the social media posts, such as butter, cheese, eggs and poultry, are also regulated by supply management policies. As with milk, the CBSA list shows these items are subject to higher tariffs over initial quotas.

Official US data estimated the overall trade deficit with Canada at $63.3 billion at the end of 2024 (archived here and here), while Statistics Canada reported its surplus with the United States as Can$102.3 billion ($70.3 billion).

But the biggest factor in the imbalance was oil and gas exports from Canada, according to analysts (archived here and here).

Dairy exports from the United States to Canada amounted to $1.14 billion in 2024, according to the US Department of Agriculture, nearly doubling over a decade (archived here).

Read more of AFP's reporting on misinformation in Canada here.