Six charts that explain Canada’s incoming countertariffs on U.S. goods

On Tuesday, Canada is set to slap countertariffs on roughly $28-billion of U.S. goods, ranging from carpets and cutlery to radiators and steel rods, baring a last-minute deal between the two countries.

The duties, which would cover hundreds of items, are scheduled to come into effect at midnight.

Ottawa has said it designed the tariffs as a tit-for-tat response to President Donald Trump’s use of Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 on roughly the same dollar figure worth of Canadian shipments to the U.S.

Here are six charts to help understand the impact of the next step of the unfolding trade war.

The big picture

Canada’s countertariffs are designed to send a message that two can play the trade war game, and the federal government is hoping politicians in a number of states will be its messengers.

The Sept. 8 duties will fall heaviest on a number of swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, while also targeting key industries in other Republican strongholds.

For instance, Harley Davidson’s plant in Pennsylvania could feel the sting of tariffs on U.S.-made motorcycles. Over the past five years the company sold an average of 7,400 motorcycles per year in Canada, according to its financial records, and generated average annual revenue of US$215-million for bikes, parts and services.

Ohio would be hardest hit in dollar terms, since it shipped $3.3-billion of tariff-covered goods to Canada in 2025, with steel items high on the list. The state is home to Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. CLF-N, a steelmaker that has lobbied heavily for Mr. Trump’s steel tariffs – and which also happens to own Canadian steelmaker Stelco.

U.S. businesses think looming countertariffs will inflict pain, but not misery

Biggest tariff rate surge in decades

Canada and the United States have enjoyed decades of free trade since 1989, with the signing of the initial Canada-United States Free Trade agreement – later expanded to become NAFTA, with Mexico, and then tweaked to become CUSMA during Mr. Trump’s first term.

The deals brought about extremely low effective tariff rates on U.S. goods coming into Canada, of around 0.2 per cent.

Last year’s countertariffs, which Ottawa put in place in March, 2025, and largely reversed in September of that year, pushed the rate to an estimated 1.2 per cent, according to an analysis by Trevor Tombe, a professor of economics at the University of Calgary.

Here’s how Canada’s countertariffs could hit your wallet

The incoming Sept. 8 duties could push Canada’s effective tariff rate on U.S. imports to 3.2 per cent, he estimated, the highest level since the 1980s.

That’s a significant departure from decades of free trade.

Finding substitutes

In choosing which U.S. goods to target with tariffs, the federal government opted for products it said are easier for consumers and businesses to find elsewhere, whether that’s sourcing goods from domestic producers or through imports from other countries.

Doing so, it argued, would help mitigate price increases and supply chain disruptions in the Canadian economy.

For roughly one-eighth of the goods about to be tariffed, the U.S. accounts for the vast majority – more than 80 per cent – of Canada’s total imports of those products, according to a Globe and Mail analysis of trade data.

Domestic producers may be able to fill the gap, but supply chains can’t be adjusted overnight. And where there are no domestic suppliers of specific products, the federal government has said it will keep its remissions framework in place, which allows companies to avoid tariffs on hard-to-substitute goods.

But this chart also shows that the number of high-value goods for which the U.S. is the dominant source is relatively small, meaning there are indeed international alternatives businesses can turn to for most items.

An eye for an eye

Canada’s tit-for-tat approach to the Sept. 8 countertariffs means many of the items on Canada’s list of $27.6-billion worth of imports from the U.S. were on Mr. Trump’s $27.6-billion worth of Section 338 tariffs.

Those include products like honey, hair care products, metal furniture and cardboard boxes.

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That doesn’t mean Canada and the U.S. ship equal values of each goods to each other. While Canada shipped double the amount of wire and cable to the U.S. than it received, and much more corrugated cardboard box products, the U.S. shipped vastly more plastic bag products and bakery mixes here.

From zero to 50

When Canada released its retaliation list, the targets included U.S. goods already facing tariffs – only now at higher levels – as well as a large number of new items.

The first category includes a swath of products dear to Mr. Trump’s protectionist heart: steel and aluminum goods and derivative products. They account for the largest dollar value on the list, and as of Sept. 8, most will incur duties of 50 per cent, double the current rate.

Of the new products that could soon be tariffed, several would see large increases in charges, such as routers and network switching equipment for transmitting voice, images and data, which would incur $460-million of tariff costs, based on 2025 trade data, and corrugated cardboard boxes, which would face tariff costs of $327-million.

Seafood switcheroo

Late in the evening on Wednesday, Aug. 26, the Canadian government dropped more than 200 seafood-related customs codes from their initial countertariff list released just the day before.

This switch eased the tariff pressure on Maine and Alaska and the government said it was done based on feedback from Canada’s fisheries sector in Atlantic Canada, which warned the duties could devastate the industry.

In order to approximately maintain the dollar-for-dollar counterblow, six new items were added to the list of countertariffs, including glass bottles, printed pictures and cards, plasterboard and copper wire.