China passes Canada to become largest US trading partner

             The article was posted by globalmail.com a Vancouver based website; however the article was written by Iain Marlow who is an Asia-Pacific Correspondent.

The main theme of the article is that China has overtaken Canada as the United States largest trading partner. It’s a huge economic change for Canada due to the fact that U.S and Canada have been huge trading partners for many years. As the article states, “a landmark shift that eliminates one of the defining characteristics of the Canadian economy.”

The main reason Canada has begun to “slip up” in trading with US is because the reduced value of their energy resources. Oil prices and low value energy exports that belong in Canada have become unappealing to the US market. That’s why US has increased commerce with China because of more profitable returns in imports, as well as exports.

When analyzing the article one key statistic stuck out to me. This was that fact that the margin between China and Canada’s trade percentage is quite slim.  “China’s trade with the U.S. for the nine months to the end of September was valued at $441.6-billion (U.S.), or 15.7%of total U.S. trade, compared with the $438-billion value of Canada-U.S. trade, which has slipped to 15.5 %of U.S. trade.” What this shows to me is that this a fairly new change for all countries involved, and due to the fact that China has entered a recession I wouldn’t be surprised to see these numbers switch up by the end of the year. With the TPP being implemented in the future, in which China is not involved in, may also increase trade with Canada. The one takeaway is that it is clear that influence of the economically flourishing Asia-Pacific region is beginning to become a very large player in the global market.