In the latest The Business Monitor, the vast majority of businesses want greater diversification of international trade. However, just 1 in 5 are likely to increase international trade beyond the US in the face of Donald Trump’s trade war.
Key findings in this release:
- There has been a large increase in business leaders' desire for increased trade diversification.
- We also see a large increase in the number of business leaders who think it is possible3
- Yet relatively few are likely to diversify trade beyond the U.S.
A more detailed presentation is in the report, including additional survey findings and breakouts.
There has been a big jump in the number of Canadian businesses who want greater diversification of international trade
While this was already at high level prior to the US election and threats of tariffs, the increase is substantial. Relatively few think greater integration with the US should be on the menu.
Over the past year, there has also been a large shift in the number who believe Canada can diversify its international trade
The number of business leaders who say Canada has strong potential to diversify has doubled over the past year.
- This shift is particularly pronounced in Quebec where one quarter said it was not possible for Canada to diversify back in 2024 – a view now held by just 3% in this province.
Despite wide support to increased trade diversification, just 1 in 5 of Canadian businesses are likely to diversify internationally
Businesses are much more likely to increase focus on the Canadian market in response to the trade war with the U.S..
- Few expect to layoff staff or to follow Trump’s idea of forcing companies to more operations to the U.S..
Discussion
Over the past few decades, Canada has become increasingly dependent on the US for its international trade. Donald Trump’s trade war has exposed a major economic vulnerability for Canada.
A large majority recognized this before the trade war and it is now nearly universally recognized. Yet Canada is not in a great position to diversify its international trade; only 1 in 5 business say they will expand globally.
Clearly, experience with US trade provides critical groundwork for companies to expand globally. What can be done to move other companies into international waters? The Business Monitor will continue to explore this issue over the coming months.
Methodology
The Business Monitor is powered by the Modus Business Panel –Canada’s only purpose-built, fully probability-based research panel.
The survey was conducted online using both email and SMS invitations/reminders, and completed via desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile devices. A total of 863 responses were gathered from Canadian managers and executives. As Modus Business Panel is 100% recruited using RDD probability-based telephone sampling, it is statistically valid to calculate the margin of error – it is plus or minus 3.4% at a 95% confidence interval.
The survey was conducted from March 6 to 23, 2025. We run surveys at the optimal timeframe for online surveys (~ two weeks) to avoid the early response bias of quick turnaround surveys.
The data have been weighted by region and enterprise size using the latest population data from Statistics Canada.
