Trade War Pushes Canada’s Current Account Deficit to Record

A boat sails past a container terminal on Vancouver Harbour in British Columbia.

Photographer: James MacDonald/Bloomberg

Canada’s current account deficit reached the widest on record in the second quarter as the country’s exports to the US dropped because of the trade dispute.

The shortfall rose to C$21.16 billion ($15.4 billion) in the second quarter, Statistics Canada reported Thursday. That’s the largest since at least the early 1980s, and significantly deeper than the C$1.32 billion deficit recorded in the first three months of this year, when Canadian exporters benefited from US companies building inventories to get ahead of tariffs.