Markets
How Closely is Your State Economy Tied to Canada?
How Closely is Your State Economy Tied to Canada?
With negotiations around NAFTA continuing on into this week, many Americans are rightfully wondering how major changes to the deal could impact their lives.
Discussions are still early, and it’s tough to predict the exact policies that will be affected until negotiations reach their peak. However, until that point, there is one simple barometer that can give you an idea of how you may be affected: how much business does your state do with Canada, and how much is with Mexico?
States Tied to Canada
Today’s visualization from HowMuch.net focuses specifically on how close each state economy is tied to Canada.
Using a flow diagram, it breaks down $544.9 billion of bilateral trade into the imports and exports of states, ranked by the total amount of goods sent or received from their neighbors to the north.
Here’s a breakdown of the states that export the most to Canada, both in percentage terms and dollars:
Exports to Canada, by % | Exports to Canada, by $ | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Rank | State | Exports (%) | Rank | State | Exports ($) | |
#1 | North Dakota | 82.5% | #1 | Michigan | $23.7B | |
#2 | Maine | 47.5% | #2 | Texas | $20.0B | |
#3 | Montana | 46.7% | #3 | Ohio | $19.2B | |
#4 | Michigan | 43.3% | #4 | California | $16.2B | |
#5 | Vermont | 39.7% | #5 | Illinois | $15.9B | |
#6 | Ohio | 39.0% | #6 | New York | $15.0B | |
#7 | Missouri | 37.6% | #7 | Indiana | $11.5B | |
#8 | South Dakota | 37.1% | #8 | Pennsylvania | $10.0B | |
#9 | Indiana | 33.2% | #9 | Tennessee | $8.7B | |
#10 | Wisconsin | 31.4% | #10 | Kentucky | $7.5B |
On average, 15.0% of all U.S. international trade is with Canada – but as you can see above, some states are clearly more reliant on this trade than others.
To put this in wider perspective, here’s a map we published as a part of a post on the world’s closest trade relationship. It shows that Canada is the top international destination of exports for 36 different states:
Imported from up North
Canada also sends a great deal of goods to the United States, as well.
The following states are the ones that import the most goods from Canada, and any changes to NAFTA could potentially impact these supply chains. If prices increase through tariffs, these businesses would have to either suck up the additional costs, or seek alternative inputs from other places.
Imports from Canada, by % | Imports from Canada, by $ | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Rank | State | Imports (%) | Rank | State | Imports ($) | |
#1 | Montana | 82.4% | #1 | Michigan | $48.3B | |
#2 | Vermont | 69.1% | #2 | California | $27.8B | |
#3 | Wyoming | 61.8% | #3 | Illinois | $25.3B | |
#4 | North Dakota | 53.2% | #4 | New York | $17.6B | |
#5 | Maine | 50.9% | #5 | Texas | $15.2B | |
#6 | New Hampshire | 49.6% | #6 | Washington | $12.6B | |
#7 | Michigan | 35.8% | #7 | Ohio | $11.5B | |
#8 | South Dakota | 35.1% | #8 | Pennsylvania | $10.0B | |
#9 | Virginia | 33.8% | #9 | Minnesota | $7.5B | |
#10 | Oklahoma | 29.9% | #10 | New Jersey | $7.3B |
Putting it Together
In percentage terms, northern states like North Dakota, Maine, Michigan, Vermont, and Montana are the most reliant on Canada for international trade both ways.
In many of those states, Canadian trade also tends to be large as a percentage of Gross State Product (GSP): Michigan (15%), Vermont (14%), Montana (9%), North Dakota (8%), and New Hampshire (7%) are the most affected using this criteria. Meanwhile, states like Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Maine each trade with Canada for 6% of their total GSP value.
By using dollars as a metric, Michigan is the state that will be impacted the most – it imports $48.3 billion, while exporting $23.7 billion to Canada.
Mining
Ranked: The World’s Top Diamond Mining Countries, by Carats and Value
Who are the leaders in rough diamond production and how much is their diamond output worth?

Ranked: World Diamond Mining By Country, Carat, and Value
Only 22 countries in the world engage in rough diamond production—also known as uncut, raw or natural diamonds—mining for them from deposits within their territories.
This chart, by Sam Parker illustrates the leaders in rough diamond production by weight and value. It uses data from Kimberly Process (an international certification organization) along with estimates by Dr. Ashok Damarupurshad, a precious metals and diamond specialist in South Africa.
Rough Diamond Production, By Weight
Russia takes the top spot as the world’s largest rough diamond producer, mining close to 42 million carats in 2022, well ahead of its peers.
Russia’s large lead over second-place Botswana (24.8 million carats) and third-ranked Canada (16.2 million carats) indicates that the country’s diamond production is circumventing sanctions due to the difficulties in tracing a diamond’s origin.
Here’s a quick breakdown of rough diamond production in the world.
Rank | Country | Rough Diamond Production (Carats) |
---|---|---|
1 | 🇷🇺 Russia | 41,923,910 |
2 | 🇧🇼 Botswana | 24,752,967 |
3 | 🇨🇦 Canada | 16,249,218 |
4 | 🇨🇩 DRC | 9,908,998 |
5 | 🇿🇦 South Africa | 9,660,233 |
6 | 🇦🇴 Angola | 8,763,309 |
7 | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | 4,461,450 |
8 | 🇳🇦 Namibia | 2,054,227 |
9 | 🇱🇸 Lesotho | 727,737 |
10 | 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone | 688,970 |
11 | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | 375,533 |
12 | 🇧🇷 Brazil | 158,420 |
13 | 🇬🇳 Guinea | 128,771 |
14 | 🇨🇫 Central African Republic | 118,044 |
15 | 🇬🇾 Guyana | 83,382 |
16 | 🇬🇭 Ghana | 82,500 |
17 | 🇱🇷 Liberia | 52,165 |
18 | 🇨🇮 Cote D'Ivoire | 3,904 |
19 | 🇨🇬 Republic of Congo | 3,534 |
20 | 🇨🇲 Cameroon | 2,431 |
21 | 🇻🇪 Venezuela | 1,665 |
22 | 🇲🇱 Mali | 92 |
Total | 120,201,460 |
Note: South Africa’s figures are estimated.
As with most other resources, (oil, gold, uranium), rough diamond production is distributed unequally. The top 10 rough diamond producing countries by weight account for 99.2% of all rough diamonds mined in 2022.
Diamond Mining, by Country
However, higher carat mined doesn’t necessarily mean better value for the diamond. Other factors like the cut, color, and clarity also influence a diamond’s value.
Here’s a quick breakdown of diamond production by value (USD) in 2022.
Rank | Country | Rough Diamond Value (USD) |
---|---|---|
1 | 🇧🇼 Botswana | $4,975M |
2 | 🇷🇺 Russia | $3,553M |
3 | 🇦🇴 Angola | $1,965M |
4 | 🇨🇦 Canada | $1,877M |
5 | 🇿🇦 South Africa | $1,538M |
6 | 🇳🇦 Namibia | $1,234M |
7 | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | $424M |
8 | 🇱🇸 Lesotho | $314M |
9 | 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone | $143M |
10 | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | $110M |
11 | 🇨🇩 DRC | $65M |
12 | 🇧🇷 Brazil | $30M |
13 | 🇱🇷 Liberia | $18M |
14 | 🇨🇫 Central African Republic | $15M |
15 | 🇬🇾 Guyana | $14M |
16 | 🇬🇳 Guinea | $6M |
17 | 🇬🇭 Ghana | $3M |
18 | 🇨🇲 Cameroon | $0.25M |
19 | 🇨🇬 Republic of Congo | $0.20M |
20 | 🇨🇮 Cote D'Ivoire | $0.16M |
21 | 🇻🇪 Venezuela | $0.10M |
22 | 🇲🇱 Mali | $0.06M |
Total | $16,290M |
Note: South Africa’s figures are estimated. Furthermore, numbers have been rounded and may not sum to the total.
Thus, even though Botswana only produced 59% of Russia’s diamond weight in 2022, it had a trade value of nearly $5 billion, approximately 1.5 times higher than Russia’s for the same year.
Another example is Angola, which is ranked 6th in diamond production, but 3rd in diamond value.
Both countries (as well as South Africa, Canada, and Namibia) produce gem-quality rough diamonds versus countries like Russia and the DRC whose diamonds are produced mainly for industrial use.
Which Regions Produce the Most Diamonds in 2022?
Unsurprisingly, Africa is the largest rough diamond producing region, accounting for 51% of output by weight, and 66% by value.
Rank | Region | Share of Rough Diamond Production (%) | Share of Rough Diamond Value (%) |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Africa | 51.4% | 66.4% |
2 | Europe | 34.9% | 32.9% |
3 | North America | 13.5% | 52.8% |
4 | South America | 0.2% | 2.4% |
However diamond mining in Africa is a relatively recent phenomenon, fewer than 200 years old. Diamonds had been discovered—and prized—as far back as 2,000 years ago in India, later on spreading west to Egyptian pharaohs and the Roman Empire.
By the start of the 20th century, diamond production on a large scale took off: first in South Africa, and decades later in other African countries. In fact between 1889–1959, Africa produced 98% of the world’s diamonds.
And in the latter half of the 20th century, the term blood diamond evolved from diamonds mined in African conflict zones used to finance insurgency or crime.
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