The US Imports From Canada

The United States and Canada have a long-standing trade relationship that has managed to keep a steady rhythm for the past decade. The last two years have been especially stable, which can be seen by glancing at the numbers that remained the same throughout 2018 and 2019. Canada has been the second-largest trade partner for the United States for several years now and has kept the third place on the list of countries from which the US imports goods.

In 2018 and 2019, the imported goods from Canada totaled to around $300 billion each year. These imports make up about 12% of the overall US imports. The top categories of imports from Canada are Mineral fuels, vehicles, and machinery. We will go into these imports in more detail in the rest of this article. 

The Top Categories

As far as suppliers of goods for the United States go, Canada has been steadily keeping its third place on the list. In 2018, the goods that were imported from Canada totaled $318.8 billion, and the number has risen to over $320 billion in 2019. The top categories of imports are considered those whose value totaled amounts in double digits in billions of dollars. The biggest US import from Canada is mineral fuels. This includes oils and distillation products. In 2018, this category was worth $85 billion in imports, while it grew to $90.64 billion in 2019. 

Following mineral fuels, we have vehicles that totaled $53 billion in imports in 2018 and also in 2019. This category excludes products related to railways or tramways. The next on the list of the products the US imports from Canada are machinery, which also includes boilers and nuclear reactors. For the past two years, the imports of these products to the United States from Canada were worth $23 billion each year. This shows how stable the trade with Canada has become since the amounts are not changing that much.

Steady Growth Of Trade With Canada

However, according to the latest data, the trade traffic between the US and Canada has been growing throughout 2020, so we might expect these numbers to become even bigger once this year ends. This might have a lot to do with the COVID-19 outbreak and the fact that the US is trading less with China currently, especially when it comes to imports. 

The next category of imports on our list is various commodities that are not specified and can’t be placed in a category. This also includes returns. This category of imports was worth $16 billion in each of the past two years. The last of the top categories of imports are plastics. The import of plastics from Canada was valued at $12 billion in 2018, and $11.1 billion in 2019, which makes it the only category among the top ones whose numbers have declined. 

The Other Categories

After the big categories, we have lesser ones, which include agricultural imports, wood, and electronic equipment. Agricultural goods have actually been worth more than $20 billion in imports, but they are usually divided into smaller categories. These include various snack foods that are worth $4.5 billion, red meats, which are worth $2.3 billion and fresh vegetables, which are worth $1.5 billion in imports. The category includes many other things.

The various services that are imported from Canada have an estimated worth of $35.9 billion, and they have seen a tremendous increase in the past decade. Through all this, we can see that the US is dependent on Canada for a lot of things that need to be imported. Mineral fuels are naturally the import that holds the most value, but we should not forget about the other ones as well, especially since all signs point to the fact that we will continue importing more and more from Canada.