Chart of the Week: Better than last year - U.S. tariffs

Sorting out what’s what on tariffs can make your head spin. Thankfully, there are others who do this for a living. One of the best sources is The Budget Lab at Yale, which takes all the various U.S. tariffs by country and industry to calculate an “effective tariff rate.” That’s what importers are paying as a share of the value of the goods they import. When you factor in the now lower general tariff of 10%, and the existing sector-specific tariffs, the Budget Lab puts the U.S. effective (global) tariff as of today at 11.8% vs. a high of 21% on April 13, 2025. At the end of 2026, Canada is projected to sit at 7%—close to our current estimate. Our estimate for Alberta is less than 2% given that the composition of its exports is strongly tilted toward tariff-free energy.