Who knows if US President Donald Trump has seen the latest figures released today by Spirits Canada, the voice of the Canadian alcohol industry for 75 years. Well, sales of American alcohol on Canadian shelves have plummeted: a grim precursor to the latest taxation confirmed by Trump a few days ago, with duties of 35% (read EFA News).

The decidedly downward trend is the result of the "autarchic" policy launched by Canada: since March, stores in Ontario, British Columbia and Nova Scotia have begun withdrawing American-made alcohol from their shelves in response to the tariffs imposed by Trump on Canadian goods (read EFA News).

According to new data, from March 5 to the end of April, U.S. alcohol sales in Canada dropped 66.3%, while total alcohol sales fell 12.8%. On March 13, Canada began imposing a 25% tariff on all U.S. alcohol, and most provinces removed it entirely from retail stores. In Ontario, Canada's largest alcohol market, U.S. alcohol sales plummeted 80% from March 5 to April 30. In the province, total alcohol sales fell 20%, with Canadian products dropping 12.8% and non-U.S. products dropping 14.1%.

"The North American spirits sector," explains Cal Bricker , president and CEO of Spirits Canada, "is highly interconnected, and the immediate and continued removal of all U.S. spirits products from Canadian shelves is deeply problematic for spirits producers on both sides of the border. The current disruption demonstrates the critical importance of maintaining open and reciprocal trade relationships that benefit consumers, businesses, and government revenues on both sides of the border."

In 2024, Canada imported $221 million worth of U.S. spirits, making it the category's second-largest export market, behind only the EU.

Now, however, things are getting complicated because, although Canadian alcohol sales increased 3.6% nationwide in April, and sales of other imported alcohol grew 3.7%, the entire alcohol category in Canada is down 3.3% year-over-year, with sales plummeting 20.6% in March compared to last year.

For this reason, there are many who are calling for American spirits to be put back on the shelves: "self-interested" voices, mostly, given that they come from across the border. "It's time to put American spirits back on Canadian shelves," says Chris Swonger , president and CEO of Discus, the Distilled Spirits Council of the US, a trade association representing producers and distributors of spirits sold in the United States. "These data clearly demonstrate that the decision by Canadian provinces to remove American alcoholic products from store shelves not only harms American distillers, but also needlessly reduces provincial revenues and harms Canadian consumers and hospitality businesses."