Despite boycott, Canadians poured record $50 billion into US securities at height of trade war
Canadians might be boycotting American products over the trade war and avoiding travel to the US — but their investment portfolios are snapping up red, white and blue stocks at an “unprecedented rate.”
They poured an eye-popping $50 billion into US securities at the height of the 2025 trade war — the most since at least 1990.
“Canadian investors have opted to load up on US financial assets since President Trump was sworn in,” Warren Lovely, managing director of National Bank Financial in Toronto, wrote in a recent report, noting the pace has been “unprecedented.”
“The idea of ‘buying local’ has resonated with many Canadians since the US threw our long-standing, mutually beneficial bilateral relationship into doubt,” he added.
“But this ‘Buy Canadian’ bias hasn’t really shown up where it arguably matters most: in portfolio investment flows.”
The money has mostly gone into stocks, with $35 billion in net purchases from February to May, according to data from the National Bank of Canada Financial Markets.
Canucks also bought up $14 billion in US treasuries over that period.
“In other words, Canadians have been helping to finance the deficit of the government that’s repeatedly threatened our economic livelihood,” said Lovely.
“Not exactly the tough message to the American administration some might have advocated.”
Experts said the buying frenzy is simply Canadians being pragmatic.
“The US boycott is an emotional thing, not an economic thing,” Moshe Lander, an economics professor at Concordia University in Montreal and former senior economist for the government of Alberta, told Fortune.
“A lot of Canadians have realized that there’s a limit to how far they’re prepared to voice their objections.”
Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney scrapped Canada’s counter tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of US goods in hopes of making trade peace with the Trump administration — a dramatic shift from the tough-guy rhetoric that helped get him elected.
Canada had been one of the few countries to aggressively punch back against US tariffs — and the pullback came just one day after Carney and Trump spoke by phone