Canada is the United States's largest trading partner by most measures, with bilateral trade running at roughly $900 billion annually. For decades, the relationship was treated in Ottawa as a fixed axiom of Canadian economic life — deeply interdependent, occasionally contentious, but fundamentally stable. That assumption is now under review.
Two major polls released this month document a striking shift in Canadian public sentiment. A Nanos Research survey found that 85% of Canadians want to deepen economic ties with the European Union to reduce dependence on the US. A separate Research Co. poll put support for increased EU trade at 77% — with comparable levels of enthusiasm for expanded trade with the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia. Opposition to EU trade deepening registered at just 13%.
The numbers, compiled by CultMTL drawing on both Nanos and Research Co. data, represent an unusually strong public mandate for economic diversification. And they are arriving at a moment when Ottawa has both the political will and a structural vehicle — the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with the EU, provisionally in force since 2017 — to act on them.
Why now
The shift is not happening in a vacuum. Renewed US tariff threats, an unpredictable bilateral relationship under the current administration in Washington, and what Canadian business leaders describe as a new precariousness to supply chain arrangements that run through the US-Canada border have all sharpened the incentive to diversify.
For Canadian CFOs managing cross-border logistics, the calculation has changed materially. A supply chain routed entirely through the US is now perceived as a concentration risk — a single-counterparty exposure to trade policy volatility. The alternative — routing more through European partners — involves higher upfront logistics costs but provides geopolitical hedging value that many boards are now willing to pay for.
The Angus Reid Institute separately found that Canadians also favor closer military ties with Europe, suggesting the sentiment is not narrowly commercial but reflects a broader strategic reorientation.
What European executives are watching
In Brussels, Berlin, and Paris, the Canadian sentiment data has been noted. For European multinationals navigating their own exposure to US tariff risk, a Canada that is actively seeking to deepen trade ties is an opportunity — both as an export destination and as a supply chain partner for North American market access.
CANADA's CETA provisions reduce or eliminate tariffs on 98% of goods categories traded between Canada and the EU. That framework is already in place. What has been lacking is the commercial and political momentum to fully activate it. The current moment may provide that catalyst.
The limits of the pivot
Hard-headed analysis requires acknowledging the structural constraints. Canada and the US share a 5,500-mile border, deeply integrated manufacturing supply chains — particularly in automotive and aerospace — and proximity advantages that no trade agreement can replicate. Shifting trade flows at scale takes years, not quarters. The immediate market for Canadian exports to Europe is a fraction of the US market's absorptive capacity.
But trade relationships do shift — and they tend to shift at the margin first, then at scale. The margin is moving. Canadian procurement officers are already fielding more European supplier proposals. European logistics operators are investing in transatlantic capacity. The $900 billion bilateral relationship with the US will not unwind. But its share of Canadian trade could decline meaningfully over a five-to-ten-year horizon if the current political dynamics persist.
For European CEOs with North American ambitions, Canada has just become a more interesting door.
