Canada is America’s Number One Trading Partner — By a Long Shot
Canada is America's largest trading partner. The United States does more business with Canada than with all the countries of the European Union combined!
- Access to more than 435 million consumers and a combined GDP of more than US$13.4 trillion
- Two-way goods-and-services trade between Canada and the United States was valued at C$704 billion dollars in 2005, or nearly C$1.3 million a minute in trade.
Can Canada Be Closer to the U.S. than... the U.S.?
Many Canadian production hubs are actually closer to target U.S. markets than American production sites. Most large Canadian cities are within an hour-and-a-half drive of the United States and many are much closer. Several, such as Vancouver, Windsor, and Montreal, are only minutes away.
Production locations in Quebec and the industrial heartland of southwestern Ontario are often closer to the huge American markets around New York, Boston, and Chicago than popular American production hubs like Atlanta, GA., and Raleigh, N.C.
Smart Borders
Fast and efficient trucking, railways, ocean shipping and air services link the two countries. To accommodate the growth in trade and commerce , Canada and the United States have signed a pact to work together to create a Smart Border.
The Declaration outlined a 30-Point Action Plan, which provides for ongoing collaboration in identifying and addressing security risks, while efficiently expediting the legitimate flow of people and goods across the Canada-U.S. border.
- FAST lanes for pre-approved low-risk commercial traffic opened at Windsor-Detroit, Sarnia-Port Huron, and Fort Erie-Buffalo.
- Automated permit ports, transponder identification systems and joint processing centres are being tested and deployed.
- Today, border wait times average less than 10 minutes, one of the most efficient systems in the world.