Customs duties impact evident, Canada's exports of US goods experienced the largest decline in five years.

Noted, just as US President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney are preparing to meet in Washington, Canada's exports to the US have sharply declined, while exports to other countries have soared, highlighting the impact of tariffs on trade flows. The Trump administration imposed tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum, automobiles, and other products, while Canada retaliated by imposing tariffs on a range of American goods, leading to a significant contraction in trade activity between Canada and its largest trading partner in March. Data from Statistics Canada on Tuesday showed a sharp drop of 6.6% in exports to the US, the largest decline in nearly five years, while imports decreased by 2.9%. However, exports to other countries surged by 24.8%, almost completely offsetting the decline in exports to the US. Imports from other countries also saw a slight increase of 1%. This narrowed Canada's global merchandise trade deficit to 506 million Canadian dollars, a significant improvement from February's deficit of 1.4 billion Canadian dollars, and better than the Bloomberg economist survey's expected deficit of 1.6 billion Canadian dollars. Canada's trade surplus with the US narrowed from 10.8 billion Canadian dollars in February to 8.4 billion Canadian dollars. Newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Carney is set to hold his first face-to-face meeting with President Trump on Tuesday. It is expected that he will discuss bilateral trade relations with the US President focused on stimulating domestic investment production and eliminating trade deficits. After adjusting for quantity, Canada's total exports in March actually increased by 1.8%, while imports slightly decreased by 0.1%.