Alberta sits near the centre of this trade war, whichever direction it escalates. The province’s exposure runs both ways — exports and imports — and the published numbers make it concrete.
The export side
According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’s Alberta director, roughly 40% of the province’s small businesses export to the US. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s tariff-vulnerability index, built on Statistics Canada trade data, ranks Calgary as the second-most tariff-exposed of Canada’s 41 largest cities — behind only Saint John — with over $119 billion in annual goods exports to the US from 1,887 exporters, concentrated in crude oil, natural gas, and beef. Lethbridge also ranks in the top ten.
The import side
About half of Alberta’s small businesses import American goods — which is where Canada’s September 8 counter-tariffs will land. CFIB’s Alberta office has warned that retaliatory tariffs will hit those businesses hard.
The jobs math
University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe estimates the new 50% US tariffs put nearly 90,000 jobs at risk nationally; while Alberta’s direct goods exposure to the covered lists is comparatively small, he pegs roughly 9,000 Alberta jobs at risk, partly through the service sector’s reliance on export activity.
What to do with that exposure — checking your products against the counter-tariff list, mapping relief programs, and pursuing adaptation funding like the RTRI — is what the rest of this site is for.
Sources: CFIB Alberta via CBC News (Aug. 22, 2026); Canadian Chamber of Commerce tariff-vulnerability index (via CBC, Feb. 2025); Trevor Tombe analysis, The Hub (Aug. 2026).
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