President Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday, September 6, 2026: “Canada’s (currency) Dollar imbalance with the U.S. is unacceptable. It has been that way for years – but no longer!” signed “President DJT.” He did not say what he meant by “imbalance,” did not name a target exchange rate, and laid out no policy for changing it.
At the time of the post, the Canadian dollar was trading at roughly C$1.38 to the U.S. dollar — meaning one Canadian dollar was worth about 72 U.S. cents.
Key facts
- The post: Trump wrote on Truth Social, Sept. 6, 2026, that Canada’s “Dollar imbalance” with the U.S. is “unacceptable.”
- Current exchange rate: about C$1.38 per US$1 — one Canadian dollar is worth roughly 72 U.S. cents.
- Tariffs took effect: Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on more than 700 categories of U.S. goods took effect at 12:01 a.m. on September 8, 2026, at rates of 15%, 25% and 50% mirroring the corresponding U.S. rates, covering roughly $27.6 billion of U.S. imports, per the Department of Finance Canada.
- Trump’s claim: the U.S. loses about $60 billion a year in trade with Canada.
- Government data: a $48.3 billion goods deficit offset by a $27.7 billion services surplus — fact-checkers put the combined gap closer to $21 billion.
- Big driver: the U.S. buys about $111 billion a year in discounted Canadian crude oil, versus about $26 billion in energy sold the other way.
What did Trump mean?
News outlets have read the post as a complaint about that exchange rate, largely because of the word “Dollar” in the wording itself. But that is their interpretation, not something Trump has confirmed. He has separately and repeatedly complained about a different figure: the U.S. trade deficit with Canada. That is not the same thing as the currency’s exchange rate — one is a price, the other is a running tally of what the two countries buy and sell each other. Multiple outlets note plainly that Trump did not say which one he meant this time: the exchange rate, the trade deficit, or something else entirely.
Two days before Canada’s own tariffs hit
The post landed in the middle of an active trade fight. The U.S. put 50% tariffs on Canadian exports — covering about 5% of what Canada normally sells the U.S. — into effect on August 22, 2026, after bilateral trade talks broke down. Canada answered with its own retaliatory tariffs: more than 700 categories of American goods, at rates from 15% to 50%, including a doubling of Canadian duties on U.S. steel and aluminum to 50%. Those tariffs, which Prime Minister Mark Carney has called a “dollar for dollar” response, were scheduled to take effect Tuesday, September 8, 2026 — two days after Trump’s post, on a deadline that was already set before he wrote it.
The $60 billion figure, and the fuller picture
Trump has repeatedly said the U.S. loses about $60 billion a year in trade with Canada. Government trade data tell a more complicated story. The U.S. Trade Representative’s office and the Census Bureau put the 2025 U.S. goods deficit with Canada at $48.3 billion — but the U.S. also ran a $27.7 billion services surplus with Canada that year. Combined, fact-checks by CNN and The Canadian Press put the real gap closer to $21 billion. Much of even that smaller deficit traces to one product: the same figures show the U.S. buys close to $111 billion a year in discounted Canadian crude oil, versus about $26 billion in energy sold the other way. The discounted Canadian crude purchases account for much of the deficit and widen the trade numbers Trump cites.
Separately, one analysis, published by the tech-news site ts2.tech, estimated that moving the Canadian dollar all the way to parity with the U.S. dollar — trading at an even 1-to-1 rate — would require the loonie to rise roughly 38% in value, a jump that the analysis said would raise costs for American companies that buy from Canadian suppliers by tens of billions of dollars annually.
No direct Canadian response to the post so far
As of the most recent reporting, neither the Bank of Canada nor Ottawa had announced any policy step in response to Trump’s post; the Bank of Canada has not intervened directly in currency markets since 1998. Prime Minister Carney had not addressed the currency comment specifically. In earlier remarks from September 1 and 3 — before Trump’s post — Carney called new U.S. tariff demands a “miscalculation” and accused the administration of trying to “destroy our major industries,” language tied to the broader tariff dispute rather than to this specific post. Separately, in an August 31 CNBC interview — about a week before Trump’s currency post — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Canada could not go “tit for tat” with a U.S. economy he put at roughly 13 times its size. The remarks were made in the context of the wider trade standoff, not as a reaction to the currency post, which came nearly a week later.
What happens next
For now, Trump’s post stands as a public complaint with no stated mechanism attached to it. What does have a fixed date is the tariff deadline that was already on the calendar before he wrote it: on Tuesday, September 8, Canada’s own retaliatory tariffs — more than 700 categories of American goods, at rates from 15% to 50% — took effect, regardless of what the post said.