Texas congressman says his state alone out-earns all of Canada — so why is Mark Carney still fighting?

U.S. Representative Brandon Gill, of Texas, answered with a number. “Your entire nation has a lower annual GDP than Texas,” Gill wrote on X. “You need us a lot more than we need you.”

He’s right about the GDP part. Texas out-produced Canada by more than half a trillion dollars last year. But that number doesn’t illustrate what America and Canada buy from each other.

America bought $111 billion of Canadian energy last year, and Canadian buyers took $34.6 billion in Texas goods. Neither side is backing down. Canada suspended negotiations and is spending billions to support affected businesses instead.

The math actually checks out

Texas produced $2.9 trillion in 2025, per U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data. Canada produced $2.32 trillion in current U.S. dollars, per the World Bank. Texas did it with 31.7 million people, compared with Canada’s 41.4 million.

But that comparison is in U.S. dollars. Canada earns in Canadian dollars, and in its own money the economy was worth C$3.25 trillion last year.

What the tariff list leaves out

The tariffs were signed July 20 under a 1930 trade law that lets a president tax goods from a country he decides is treating U.S. businesses unfairly.

That matters because the U.S., Canada and Mexico have a free-trade deal — the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) — meant to keep tariffs off goods crossing between the three nations.

The White House wrote these tariffs to apply regardless: a Canadian product that qualifies for duty-free treatment under USMCA still gets taxed 50%. However, Canadian oil and gas, potash, fish and critical minerals don’t carry the new tariff. Potash is fertilizer, and American farms run on it.

Energy is the other big one. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says the new tariff policy exempts energy trade. America takes in 3.9 million barrels a day of Canadian crude — more than from any other country.

Canada sends 71.7% of its goods exports to the U.S., so American buyers matter more to Canadian producers.