The debate over North America’s trade rules has moved from negotiating rooms to farm country. Agricultural officials and industry representatives from Canada, the United States and Mexico are gathered in Calgary for the 35th Tri-National Agricultural Accord, running from September 28 to October 1, as uncertainty hangs over the future of USMCA, known in Canada as CUSMA.
U.S. farm organizations are putting a striking number at the centre of their argument: agricultural and seafood exports to Canada and Mexico supported an estimated US$149 billion in U.S. economic output in 2024. That figure is modeled economic activity rather than the value of the exports themselves, but it illustrates how widely North American farm trade reaches beyond the farm gate. The stakes have risen since the United States declined to extend USMCA in its current form during the July review, leaving negotiations—and the agreement itself—ongoing.
The $149 Billion Figure Is Bigger Than the Actual Export Total
The headline number needs some context. The Agricultural Coalition for USMCA calculated that U.S. agricultural and seafood exports to Canada and Mexico supported approximately US$148.6 billion in total U.S. economic output in 2024. The coalition estimated those exports supported 493,054 full-time-equivalent jobs, roughly US$35.6 billion in labour income, US$64.1 billion in value added to GDP and about US$13.2 billion in tax revenue. Its report says every dollar of industry exports produced another US$2.45 in supported U.S. economic activity.
That does not mean American farmers directly shipped US$149 billion worth of food to their neighbours. The report puts 2024 U.S. agricultural exports to Canada and Mexico at roughly US$60 billion, plus about US$1.2 billion in seafood. The larger number comes from an IMPLAN economic model that adds direct activity to indirect activity—such as trucking, wholesaling, utilities and other suppliers—and induced activity created when workers spend their earnings. In other words, a load of corn crossing into Mexico or ethanol moving into Canada can support income and spending several steps removed from the original farm. That distinction matters because the US$149-billion figure is an industry estimate of economic contribution, not a customs tally of cross-border sales.
Calgary Arrives at an Unusually Sensitive Moment
The Calgary gathering is not a newly created trade summit. The Tri-National Agricultural Accord dates back to the early 1990s and is designed to bring senior state and provincial agricultural officials together with industry representatives to discuss trade, market challenges and rural development. Alberta’s program includes bilateral meetings, three-country sessions, industry discussions and separate national meetings. That long-established format gives agriculture officials a place to discuss practical problems even when relations between the three federal governments are more complicated.
What makes the 2026 meeting different is the unresolved USMCA review. On July 1, the U.S. Trade Representative said the United States had not agreed to renew the agreement in its current form. USTR stressed that USMCA nevertheless remains in force while the countries continue trying to resolve outstanding issues. The farm coalition has used the Calgary meeting to renew its argument for preserving the trilateral framework, saying the gathering offers an opportunity to work through disagreements and identify additional areas for cooperation. Calgary therefore has no automatic power to settle USMCA, but it gives agricultural officials and industry groups from all three countries a timely venue to make the economic consequences of the broader negotiations harder to ignore.
Canada and Mexico Have Become the Two Biggest U.S. Farm Markets
The farm lobby’s concern becomes easier to understand when the export rankings are examined. USDA data show that Mexico was the largest foreign market for U.S. agricultural products in 2025 at approximately US$30.6 billion, accounting for nearly 18% of U.S. farm exports. Canada ranked second, taking roughly US$28.2 billion to US$28.7 billion, depending on the USDA statistical series used. Total U.S. agricultural exports were about US$171 billion that year. Together, the two neighbouring markets therefore absorbed roughly one-third of American agricultural exports.
Geography is part of the reason. A producer in the Midwest does not face the same logistics moving corn by rail into Mexico as sending it across an ocean, while Canadian food processors and retailers are deeply connected to U.S. suppliers by truck and rail. USDA says American agricultural exports to Canada and Mexico have roughly quadrupled over the past quarter-century as North American trade barriers were reduced under NAFTA and later USMCA. That integration makes Canada and Mexico more than two convenient customers. They are embedded in production decisions, transportation networks, processing capacity and inventory planning. Replacing tens of billions of dollars in neighbouring demand with more distant markets would therefore involve more than simply finding another buyer at the same price.
4. The Exposure Looks Very Different Depending on What a Farmer Produces
Mexico is particularly important to American bulk commodities and animal agriculture. USDA says grains, oilseeds, meat and related products represented nearly three-quarters of U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico in 2025. The coalition’s 2024 data put U.S. corn exports to Mexico alone at approximately US$5.5 billion, while Mexico also bought major volumes of pork, dairy products, soybeans, poultry and beef. USTR reported that U.S. corn exports to Mexico reached about US$5.6 billion in 2024, making Mexico the largest foreign market for American corn.
Canada’s shopping list looks different. USDA identifies bakery products, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, ethanol and prepared foods among leading American exports north of the border. In 2025, U.S. fuel ethanol exports to Canada were worth roughly US$1.5 billion in USDA trade data, while dog and cat food, chocolate, beef, cattle and pork were also major categories. The relationship runs in both directions: American buyers import Canadian beef, cattle, canola oil, baked goods, potatoes and pork, while Mexican farms provide enormous volumes of fruit and vegetables to U.S. consumers. That helps explain why agriculture groups focus heavily on maintaining predictable border rules. A disruption can move quickly from a producer’s income statement to a processor, feedlot, supermarket distribution centre or transportation company.
Farm Groups Want Renewal, but They Are Not Arguing That Nothing Should Change
Support for keeping USMCA does not mean the agricultural sector considers the agreement problem-free. The Agricultural Coalition for USMCA was formed around a position favouring renewal with targeted improvements. Agricultural disputes have already tested the agreement’s enforcement mechanisms. One of the most prominent involved Mexico’s restrictions on genetically engineered corn. A USMCA dispute panel ruled in favour of the United States in December 2024, and Mexico subsequently declared ineffective two measures challenged by Washington, including restrictions affecting genetically engineered corn used for food and animal feed.
Canada’s dairy system has produced a more complicated record. A 2022 USMCA panel agreed with a U.S. complaint that Canada improperly reserved portions of dairy tariff-rate quotas for processors. Canada changed its allocation policies, after which Washington brought another case. In the subsequent 2023 decision, two of three panelists found that the revised Canadian measures did not violate the USMCA provisions cited by the United States, although a dissenting panelist agreed with part of the American argument. Those cases illustrate why farm groups can simultaneously support the agreement and seek changes to how it operates. From their perspective, USMCA is valuable not because disagreements disappear, but because there is an established framework through which countries can contest them.
Canadian Agriculture Has Its Own Reasons to Watch the U.S. Debate Closely
The dependence does not run in only one direction. USDA estimates that the United States bought 60.3% of Canada’s agricultural exports in 2025 and supplied 50.3% of Canada’s agricultural imports. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada uses a somewhat broader agri-food and seafood definition and reports an even larger trade footprint: Canadian exports to the U.S. reached C$63.8 billion in 2024, with Ontario accounting for 39.1% of that total, Alberta 14.4%, Quebec 14.2% and Saskatchewan 9.2%.
Those numbers help make Calgary a fitting location for this year’s discussions. Alberta exported more than C$9.2 billion in agri-food and seafood products to the United States in 2024 under the Canadian government’s dataset, and Western Canada is deeply involved in the cattle, beef, grain and oilseed trade that moves across the border. Nationally, Canadian officials say the U.S. accounted for 61.9% of Canadian agri-food and seafood exports in 2024. The relationship also involves two-way production rather than simple competition: USDA describes beef, pork, grains, feed and processed foods as areas where Canada and the United States both import from and export to each other. A disruption in access can therefore affect Canadian producers while also raising costs or narrowing supply options for American processors and buyers.
The Agreement Is Still Alive—and the Legal Clock Gives Negotiators Time
The July decision did not abolish USMCA. Article 34.7 gives the agreement a 16-year term and establishes a six-year review process. Because all three parties did not agree to extend the pact during the 2026 review, the agreement requires annual joint reviews for the remaining term unless the countries later reach agreement on an extension. If all three eventually confirm that they want another 16-year term, the extension can take effect and the system returns to six-year reviews. Without an extension or another legal change, the current term runs to 2036. Withdrawal is a separate process under the agreement.
That makes the current period less like a single make-or-break deadline and more like an extended negotiation with substantial commercial uncertainty. Calgary’s agricultural accord cannot renew the treaty on behalf of the three federal governments, but the meeting puts officials and industry representatives who live with cross-border trade in the same rooms while those negotiations continue. For farm organizations, the message is ultimately about predictability: planting, livestock, processing investments and export contracts are commonly planned well before products reach the border. The coalition’s US$149-billion estimate is its attempt to show that those decisions ripple far outside agriculture—and why the debate over USMCA’s future is unlikely to remain confined to trade ministries in Washington, Ottawa and Mexico City.
