Perc Pineda, PhD
Chief Economist, Plastics Industry Association
As widely reported in the news last week, Canada will impose tariffs effective September 8 on six plastics products at 50% and three plastics molds at 15%. These are USMCA-qualifying products that have not been subject to tariffs in the past. In response to the U.S. 50% Section 338 tariffs on $27.6 billion of Canadian goods, Canada is imposing counter-tariffs on an equivalent $27.6 billion of U.S. imports. The targeted measures include selected plastics products and molds, along with products in several other sectors, while existing counter-tariffs remain in effect. With the trade agreement among the U.S., Mexico, and Canada now under review, these recent developments add another layer of uncertainty to the future of USMCA.
Canada’s Tariffs on U.S. Plastics Products
To put Canada’s tariff action in context, U.S. exports of plastics products to Canada totaled $8.02 billion in 2024 and $7.78 billion in 2025, while U.S. imports of plastics products from Canada totaled $8.34 billion and $7.69 billion, respectively. As a result, the U.S. trade deficit in plastics products with Canada narrowed from $0.32 billion in 2024 to a $0.09 billion surplus in 2025. Trade in plastics molds, however, has consistently been in deficit. U.S. exports of plastics molds to Canada totaled $760.21 million in 2024 and $753.79 million in 2025, while imports from Canada totaled $81.82 million and $64.48 million, respectively. This resulted in a U.S. trade deficit in plastics molds of $678.39 million in 2024 and $613.92 million in 2025.
Taken in this context, the impact of the tariffs on plastics products may be limited given the relatively balanced bilateral trade relationship. For plastics molds, however, the tariffs could raise the cost of U.S.-made molds in Canada and further reduce the market share of U.S. mold manufacturers.
Measuring U.S. Exposure
Quantifying the U.S. plastics industry’s exposure to the tariffs presents a classification challenge. Canada identifies products subject to the counter-tariffs at the 8-digit tariff-item level, but U.S. 8-digit HTS tariff lines do not necessarily correspond one-to-one with Canadian 8-digit tariff items. Therefore, the analysis uses the 6-digit U.S. HTS codes, which correspond to the internationally harmonized HS classification. While this approach provides a consistent basis for identifying the relevant product categories, it does not allow U.S. export values to be matched precisely to the specific Canadian 8-digit tariff items subject to the 50% and 15% tariff. As shown in the table below, U.S. exports of plastics products and molds covered by Canada’s countermeasures totaled $1.12 billion in 2024 before declining 15.5% to $972.6 million in 2025. The resulting export values should therefore be viewed as estimates of U.S. products potentially exposed to the tariffs rather than exact measures of the value subject to the tariff.
U.S.-Canada Plastics Trade
U.S.-Canada trade relations over many years have created deep integration between the two countries’ manufacturing supply chains. With the creation of the free trade pact between the two countries and Mexico, Mexico has emerged as the U.S. plastics industry’s largest export market, where the U.S. maintains a trade surplus. With Canada, however, the U.S. trade balance has shifted between a surplus and a deficit from year to year—a trade phenomenon that will once again be discussed in PLASTICS’ annual flagship publication, Global Trends Report, to be released this fall at PLASTIMAGEN 2026 in Mexico City.
As the review of USMCA continues, all three countries are likely to maneuver to improve their respective trade positions within the free trade pact. However, all three economies are ultimately better served by maintaining a stable trade agreement that preserves and strengthens the integrated North American manufacturing supply chain. Against this backdrop, the $972.62 million in U.S. plastics products and molds exports to Canada that will face double-digit tariffs as of September 8 represents 12.1% of total U.S. exports of these products to Canada in 2025. Maintaining a predictable trade framework among the three countries remains important to the competitiveness of their manufacturing industries.
