{"id":429205,"date":"2026-04-02T19:40:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T12:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/04\/canada-february-trade-balance-5-74b-vs-2-25b-expected\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T19:40:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T12:40:05","slug":"canada-february-trade-balance-5-74b-vs-2-25b-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/canada-february-trade-balance-5-74b-vs-2-25b-expected-429205\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada February trade balance -5.74B vs -2.25B expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Prior was -3.65B (revised to -$4.18B)<\/li>\n<li>Exports 66.31B vs 62.488B prior<\/li>\n<li>Imports 72.05B vs 66.13B prior<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Canada&#8217;s merchandise trade activity increased sharply, with imports rising 8.4% and exports increasing 6.4%.<\/p>\n<p>There were some big swings in gold that made this report look worse than it was. Excluding unwrought gold, silver, and platinum group metals,<br \/>\nand their alloys\u2014a product group largely composed of unwrought gold\u2014imports rose 5.8%, while exports were up 5.5%.<\/p>\n<p>The other thing skewing this data (and yesterday&#8217;s Canadian data) was auto production shutdowns that extended into January then rebounded in February. As a result, imports of motor vehicle engines and motor vehicle parts rose +7.5%.<\/p>\n<p>There is going to be a big improvement in March given the jump in oil prices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Statistics Canada publishes monthly international merchandise trade data on a balance-of-payments basis, covering goods exports and imports by product and trading partner. The United States remains by far Canada&#8217;s largest trading partner, though the U.S. share of Canadian exports slipped from 75.9% in 2024 to 71.7% in 2025 as trade with non-U.S. destinations\u2014particularly for energy and metals\u2014expanded. Canada also publishes a combined goods-and-services trade balance, drawing on a separate monthly services trade survey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Canada&#8217;s trade position deteriorated steadily through 2025. The annual merchandise deficit widened to C$31.3 billion, the largest since 2020, up sharply from C$7.2 billion in 2024. The surplus with the United States shrank from C$101.3 billion to C$81.6 billion, while the deficit with non-U.S. countries widened to C$112.9 billion. Monthly results were volatile, swinging from a C$6.4 billion deficit in August to a near-balanced position in September before slipping back to deficits of C$2.2 billion in November and C$1.3 billion in December.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">January 2026 brought a sharp deterioration. The merchandise trade deficit widened to C$3.6 billion from C$1.3 billion in December, well above the C$0.9 billion consensus. Exports fell 4.7%, the largest monthly decline since April 2025, dragged down by a 21.2% plunge in motor vehicle and parts shipments to their lowest level since September 2021, as prolonged production stoppages for model changeovers disrupted passenger car exports. Aircraft shipments also reversed a strong December. Energy exports provided a partial offset, with natural gas up 23.7%. Imports declined a more modest 1.1%. Including services, the total trade deficit widened to C$3.8 billion. Canada&#8217;s surplus with the U.S. narrowed to C$5.3 billion, while the deficit with non-U.S. partners widened to C$9 billion. The February trade report is scheduled for release today, April 2.<\/p>\n<p>                            This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prior was -3.65B (revised to -$4.18B) Exports 66.31B vs 62.488B prior Imports 72.05B vs 66.13B prior Canada&#8217;s merchandise trade activity increased sharply, with imports rising 8.4% and exports increasing 6.4%. There were&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}