‘Canada better straighten up, bro’: Should more be done to educate Americans on trade? This expert thinks so.

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HOUSTON — Piling his shopping bags into his vehicle’s trunk outside a Houston grocery store last week, Texan Herman Moreno said he doesn’t think Canada has any kind of trading relationship with Texas at all.

“Canada better straighten up, bro,” he said. “If they want their money, they better straighten up.”

Canada is actually the Lone Star State’s second-largest trading partner. Many Texans like Moreno don’t know anything about it.

Moreno proudly said he voted for U.S. President Donald Trump three times and he’d vote for him a fourth time if he could. He’s a veteran who moved from Michigan to Texas three years ago to help raise a grandchild born with a disability.

What little he thinks he knows about Canada appears to have been culled from right-wing social media platforms that are increasingly parroting narratives from Alberta separatists.

“Canada wanted to be a state,” Moreno told The Canadian Press last week.

For a long time, Canada was quiet about its contributions to the U.S economy, said Laura Dawson, an expert on Canada-U.S. relations and the executive director of the Future Borders Coalition.

“We did fly under the radar for so many years and in some ways it was a benefit,” Dawson said.

Texas imported $38.6 billion in goods from Canada in 2024, with automobiles, aircraft and oil topping the list. Texas also sells a lot to Canada — $36.6 billion in exports in 2024.

A report by the Future Borders Coalition released last year also pointed to Canadian private sector investors like Brookfield that have made large-scale commitments to data centres and energy infrastructure in Texas, and to the massive investment footprint of Canada’s public pensions.

Canada’s low-profile approach may no longer be working, Dawson said.

American support for free trade has plummeted and was dropping even before Trump’s return to the White House. While Canada might not be the main target of all that anger, Dawson said, it risks getting swept aside by it unless it does a better job of educating Americans about the benefits of trade.

“There are very few businesses in Texas, or politicians, who think badly of Canada,” she said. “But Canada will often be lumped into foreign traders and actions against foreign traders, whether that’s Mexico or China.”

The Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, better known as CUSMA, is up for mandatory review this year. The continental trade pact, negotiated during the first Trump administration, has shielded Canada and Mexico from the brunt of Trump’s tariffs.

While Prime Minister Mark Carney has worked to diversify Canada’s trading markets, Dawson said geography ensures that trade with the United States will remain important for many industries.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer was in Mexico this week for CUSMA negotiations. Talks between Washington and Ottawa have yet to officially launch.

Texans are much more aware of issues with Mexico. They will freely share their concerns about manufacturing jobs moving south, or frustrations over drugs and people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Many will also say trade with Mexico is important.

There’s a lot of Mexican representation in Texas, from business associations to research and policy organizations.

Canada does have a consulate general in Dallas and some other business organizations, but Dawson said it’s a much smaller presence and they’re run “on a shoestring budget.”

Without those long-standing relationships, Dawson said, many Americans who hear the president claim that large amounts of fentanyl are crossing the border with Canada — a claim that is not supported by U.S. government data — are more likely to believe it.

Canadians have been obsessively talking about the country’s trading relationship and investments in the United States since Trump began his campaign of tariffs and erratic threats of annexation. It’s not the same for Texans.

Scott Curtis, a Texan and retired NASA employee, said he recognizes he doesn’t know many details about bilateral trade but he assumes that “Canada is more dependent on the U.S. than we are on them.”

“The extremes in both countries are the loudest,” Curtis said in Houston last week. “The average Texan and the average Canadian would just like to exchange some gulf shrimp for some maple syrup.”

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political-science professor at the University of Houston, said Canada is not discussed much in Texas. People who work in industries with close ties to Canada, like oil and energy, are aware of the relationship but that information doesn’t filter down to the general public, he said.

“I don’t think most people — voters or even party officials — are talking much about the Canada-Texas energy ties,” he said. “That’s not to say they’re not important, because they definitely are.”

While Canadian businesses and provincial leaders, particularly those from Western Canada, have more long-standing relationships with their Texan counterparts, “you will see very few official Ottawa delegations,” Dawson said.

Energy Minister Tim Hodgson travelled to Houston in March for the CERAWeek energy conference. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was also in Texas the same month and met with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

Dawson said Ottawa needs to make an “institutional investment” in Canada-U.S. diplomacy — not just for the CUSMA review or the remainder of Trump presidency, but in the interests of long-term stability.

“Germany, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Britain, France … all of those countries are highly, highly invested in outreach and public education in the United States on commercial interests that Canada’s just not doing, has not been doing for years,” she said.

Texan Louise Bennet said she knows that trade between Canada and the United States is important. Stopping to get her weekly groceries in Houston, Bennet said Canada needs to speak up.

“Why wouldn’t they?” she said. “If they are trying to do trade and want people to know, they should be loud about it.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 22, 2026.

Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press