President Donald Trump has long been obsessed with U.S. trade deficits. Most economists say the trade deficit with any one country tells you very little. Trump has seen it for decades as proof that other nations are ripping off the United States. He wants them buying more American goods and services until trade evens out. But the gap in population and income between the United States and most of our trading partners undermines his goal.

The United States has the world’s third-largest population, about 343 million. Canada, the target of Trump’s latest tariff tantrum, has fewer than 42 million. Given that gap, if every Canadian spent as much on American goods and services as every American spent on Canadian ones – per-person parity, in other words – Americans would still spend about eight times as much on Canadian products as Canadians spent on ours.

Canadians also have less money. The World Bank puts national income per person at $88,810 in the United States in 2025, compared with $56,420 in Canada. So there are fewer Canadians, and each of them has less to spend.

Even so, U.S. businesses and consumers spent $454 billion on Canadian goods and services in 2025, while Canadians spent $426 billion on ours. That left a........

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