Canada-U.S.

Ken McMullen , BA, MPA

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ON DECEMBER 29, 2025 BY PHOTOMOTOMANIN POLITICAL EDITORIAL

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First It Was Travel – Now It’s The Food Supply

Canadians are shifting their buying habits, entirely.

What started as a response to Trump’s arrogance and ignorance has become a full-blown boycott by consumers.

Now, Canadians are willing to pay the additional costs of importing fruits and vegetables from Mexico, Latin America, Chile, South Africa and Asia.

Rather than buy produce from the U.S., Canadians have decided that it actually isn’t that hard or that much more expensive to buy what we eat with respect to produce from farther afield.

In addition, “cold climate shipping and storage” has progressed to a point where distance has become much, much less of a factor.

Instead of shipping by truck from Mexico, through the U.S., it’s turning out to make much more sense to ship produce by ship. Large shipments to both east and west coasts of Canada are easily transported by rail. This combination of transport clearly eliminates delays, border crossings, tariffs and the genuine inconvenience of crossing the U.S. border.

It does take longer, a minimum of three days, but with new port efficiency, particularly on the west coast, utilizing faster ships it is possible to maintain a 10 day Mexico to Canadian distributor network.

Infrastructure improvements as part of Canada’s new “Build Canada Initiative” will radically improve ship and rail transport to Canada.

The ramifications of such action would be highly detrimental to the trucking industry in the United States, which is the normal mechanism by which produce shipments arrive in Canada from Mexico.

But when your neighbour becomes aggressive and threatens to annex your country, redefining the relationship is an imperative.

So is importing by ship a preference? Not really.

Is it an imperative? Absolutely.

The U.S. is going to find that as time goes on, Canadians won’t be buying almost anything from the U.S.

Canadians have ‘detached’ from the U.S. in a way that economists would have thought to be impossible.

Canada is building new ports, new “cold cycle” storage systems, new inspection processes and new pricing models to accommodate a change that is rapidly moving trade from a North-South orientation, to an East-West transportation and supply network.

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Long term contracts are now being finalized with off-shore suppliers that will, once completed, will remain for decades, as the cost of being forced by the U.S. to change, has had costs that Canadians are displeased with.\

In the future, produce won’t come from California, Oregon and Washington, unless it serves the interests of Canadians.

Climate change is also making the once dependency on U.S. growers to lessen. It is already estimated that the growing season has lengthened in Canada by 20–25 days in the last 100 years.

With the rate of change intensifying, it is now possible for new crops to be grown in Canada that was impossible not that long ago, and the Arctic is seeing the fastest change of all, as permafrost is no longer permanent.

Canada’s food supply is now focused on resilience and the foundational changes necessary to permanently purchase produce from offshore.

Canadians are buying their produce on the basis of identity and principles, rather than price and convenience. The long-term implications are much greater than simply produce. Canadians are looking at products generally. The implications of which will have major long-term ramifications for the U.S.

It reduces Canada’s dependency, it takes away American leverage and it accelerates competitive gains for rival exporters eager to capture a wealthy and stable market.

Of course this creates higher volatility, seasonal unavailability and higher cost.

However, stability and independence is incredibly important to Canadians. Our economic sovereignty is more important than the added costs for produce, which can be grown locally in season, in any event.

National sentiment is becoming intertwined with daily consumption, and is now being reinforced by repeated behaviour, supply chain narratives and Canadian media.

Canada was the largest importer of produce from the United States. The sea change (no pun intended), is such that the surplus from Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona and Florida, will not be consumed or paid for by Canadians.

It is simply one more way that America is losing influence with Canada. Its most stable, lucrative and dependable market is being lost. For growers of grapes and berries in particular, the loss could be epic, driving prices in the U.S. sharply higher.

Controlled atmosphere shipping is now possible. For producers much farther afield like New Zealand, South Africa, Egypt, Japan, Korea, and yes China, this now means that their fruit and vegetable exports to Canada arrive in top condition.

Foreign producers are rapidly developing long-term contracts with Canadian wholesalers to replace and displace American products.

Resilience, political autonomy and diversification are now imperatives in Canada, and the knock-on effects globally are particularly notable. Other nations are watching carefully. They are witnessing a sea-change in North America that has global implications for influence and leverage, where America no longer ‘has the cards’, as Trump formerly suggested.

This reality will shape every negotiation, every future agreement. American leverage is diminishing rapidly. Once the entire agricultural supply chains have been diversified and become normative, American leverage will have been lost.

The one major difference between Canada, and any other available market for the U.S.A., is now evident. Canada holds many cards in a variety of areas in relation to the U.S.

Oil and gas, minerals, energy, fertilizers, critical rare earth minerals, aluminum, timber, etc., etc., hold leverage over America. In turn, Canada requires essentially nothing from the U.S. exclusively as all services, products, electronics, AI, etc., are available from other sources where Canada already has significant contracts.

Canada, is moving on. We are no longer beholden to America, in any sphere.

That includes military procurement and systems technology.

The ship of influence by America…has now sailed.

And it won’t be coming back.