Three presidential proclamations signed on 20 July 2026 put an additional duty of 50% on Canadian dairy products, alcoholic beverages and motor vehicles. Canada answered on 8 September 2026 with the United States Surtax Order (2026), which applies surtaxes of 15%, 25% and 50% to American goods covering $27.6 billion of imports. Neither set of lists reaches crude oil or natural gas. Alberta’s largest export sits outside every tariff instrument now in force between the two countries, and the reason for that is in the legal text rather than in any statement made about it.
Key facts
- Order in Council PC 2026-0785 of 4 September 2026 made the United States Surtax Order (2026) under subsection 53(2) of the Customs Tariff, imposing surtaxes of 15%, 25% and 50% on listed goods of the United States from 8 September 2026.
- The Department of Finance Canada stated on 25 August 2026 that Canada’s counter-tariffs apply to products covering $27.6 billion in imports from the United States.
- Presidential Proclamation 11048, signed 20 July 2026 and published in the Federal Register on 23 July 2026, imposed an additional duty of 50% on the Canadian motor vehicle products listed in Annex II of that proclamation.
- United States Customs and Border Protection guidance CSMS number 69606660, issued 21 August 2026, applied the duties imposed under section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to goods entered for consumption on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on 22 August 2026.
- Export Alberta reported Alberta goods exports to the United States of $151.5 billion in 2025, a decrease of 6.5% from 2024, drawn from a custom Statistics Canada data request.
What the United States tariff instruments actually cover
Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 is the authority behind the July proclamations. Each one carries an annex listing the tariff items it reaches, and the three annexes together cover dairy, alcoholic beverages and motor vehicles. United States Customs and Border Protection set the start at 12:01 a.m. eastern time on 22 August 2026, three days later than the date written into the proclamations themselves.
Steel, aluminum, copper, vehicles and lumber are handled somewhere else. Those duties run under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, through separate proclamations made at different times and carrying their own rates. The July proclamations say as much, excluding from their reach any article already dutiable under section 232. Two statutes, and two sets of dates.
The Canadian instrument is an order in council. Order in Council PC 2026-0785 of 4 September 2026 made the United States Surtax Order (2026) under subsection 53(2) of the Customs Tariff, with three schedules setting the 15%, 25% and 50% rates. The Department of Finance Canada said the individual product rates were matched to the American rate on the same goods, and quoted the finance minister saying the government “chose to stand up for Canadians”. The schedules run to tools, agricultural equipment, cheese, appliances, clothing, furniture and sporting goods. No petroleum item appears.
The legal reason Canadian energy carries no United States duty
Here the release and the text part company. The White House fact sheet of 20 July 2026 said the tariffs “will not apply to energy, potash, products subject to tariffs under Section 232”, while the proclamation signed the same day excludes only “articles subject to duties pursuant to section 232”. Energy is not exempted anywhere in the operative language. It is absent from the annex, which is a different legal position carrying a different consequence.
An exclusion written into an instrument has to be amended out before the goods behind it can be taxed. A product that was never listed can be added by a later proclamation that amends an annex, with nothing to repeal first. Alberta’s position rests on absence from a list.
The only American instrument that ever set a rate on Canadian energy was the order made under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which applied 10% to energy, mineral and fertilizer products. Executive Order 14389 of 20 February 2026, published at 91 FR 9437, ended those duties. Section 2(d) of that order states it does not affect duties imposed under section 232 or section 301. The energy rate went. The metals rates stayed.
What the scope of these instruments means for Alberta
Export Alberta puts Alberta goods exports to the United States at $151.5 billion in 2025, down 6.5% from 2024. That figure comes from a custom Statistics Canada request presented on a provincial portal rather than from a published Statistics Canada table, and it should be cited as the province’s own number. Statistics Canada reported on 19 February 2026 that the American share of Canadian merchandise exports fell from 75.9% in 2024 to 71.7% in 2025.
Set the $27.6 billion of American goods now surtaxed against the $151.5 billion Alberta sold south in 2025 and the first is about 18% of the second, by our own arithmetic. The two figures run in opposite directions across the border, so the comparison measures scale and nothing else. Neither of them describes Alberta’s energy shipments, because no instrument on either side reaches them.
Adding Alberta crude or natural gas to the American measures takes a new proclamation, an amended annex and a Federal Register notice. None has been signed. Until one is, the dairy, distilling and vehicle producers named in the annexes pay 50% at the American border from 22 August 2026, importers of the goods in the three Canadian schedules pay 15%, 25% or 50% from 8 September 2026, and Alberta’s energy shippers pay nothing under either.
