“It costs us $200 billion a year in subsidy to keep Canada afloat.” President Donald Trump said that in the Oval Office on Friday, while repeating his wish to see Canada become the 51st US state. CNN’s fact check found nothing to back it up.
Trump has used the $200 billion figure before to describe the US trade deficit with Canada. Official US statistics put the 2024 deficit with Canada at $35.7 billion in goods and services trade combined, and $70.6 billion in goods alone. CNN noted that even if Trump meant “subsidy” in a looser sense, the claim has no basis.
Dairy tariffs
On another Canada topic, Trump was right on one point. Canada does charge 270% tariffs on some US dairy products.
What he left out, CNN reported, is how the system works. Those high rates apply only after US sales exceed a tariff-free quantity that Trump himself negotiated. The US dairy industry acknowledges that it is not reaching the zero-tariff maximum in any dairy category, so the tariffs are not actually being applied.
Other numbers from the same remarks
CNN counted at least nine false claims in Trump’s remarks to reporters, and the Canada figure was one of several statistical errors. On China, Trump said the US trade deficit had reached $1 trillion or more and blamed former President Joe Biden. Official figures show the 2024 deficit with China in goods and services was $263.3 billion, up from $252.1 billion in 2023 but lower than in every year of Trump’s first term.
He also said the US has given Ukraine $350 billion in aid. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank, counts about $129 billion committed through December 2024. And he put annual fentanyl deaths near 300,000. The CDC estimated 52,385 deaths involving synthetic opioids, fentanyl included, in the 12 months ending October 2024.
Trump also said Honda had just announced a big new plant in Indiana. Honda told CNN it “did not announce plans for a new plant in the U.S. at this time.”
