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How Closely is Your State Economy Tied to Canada?

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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 $
RankStateExports (%)RankStateExports ($)
#1North Dakota82.5%#1Michigan$23.7B
#2Maine47.5%#2Texas$20.0B
#3Montana46.7%#3Ohio$19.2B
#4Michigan43.3%#4California$16.2B
#5Vermont39.7%#5Illinois$15.9B
#6Ohio39.0%#6New York$15.0B
#7Missouri37.6%#7Indiana$11.5B
#8South Dakota37.1%#8Pennsylvania$10.0B
#9Indiana33.2%#9Tennessee$8.7B
#10Wisconsin31.4%#10Kentucky$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:

US exports top international destination by state

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 $
RankStateImports (%)RankStateImports ($)
#1Montana82.4%#1Michigan$48.3B
#2Vermont69.1%#2California$27.8B
#3Wyoming61.8%#3Illinois$25.3B
#4North Dakota53.2%#4New York$17.6B
#5Maine50.9%#5Texas$15.2B
#6New Hampshire49.6%#6Washington$12.6B
#7Michigan35.8%#7Ohio$11.5B
#8South Dakota35.1%#8Pennsylvania$10.0B
#9Virginia33.8%#9Minnesota$7.5B
#10Oklahoma29.9%#10New 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.

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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?

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A cropped chart showing the leaders in rough diamond mining and how much their diamond output is 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.

ℹ️ Carat is the unit of measurement for the physical weight of diamonds. One carat equals 0.200 grams, which means it takes over 2,265 carats to equal 1 pound.

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.

RankCountryRough Diamond
Production (Carats)
1🇷🇺 Russia41,923,910
2🇧🇼 Botswana24,752,967
3🇨🇦 Canada16,249,218
4🇨🇩 DRC9,908,998
5🇿🇦 South Africa9,660,233
6🇦🇴 Angola8,763,309
7🇿🇼 Zimbabwe4,461,450
8🇳🇦 Namibia2,054,227
9🇱🇸 Lesotho727,737
10🇸🇱 Sierra Leone688,970
11🇹🇿 Tanzania375,533
12🇧🇷 Brazil158,420
13🇬🇳 Guinea128,771
14🇨🇫 Central
African Republic
118,044
15🇬🇾 Guyana83,382
16🇬🇭 Ghana82,500
17🇱🇷 Liberia52,165
18🇨🇮 Cote D'Ivoire3,904
19🇨🇬 Republic of Congo3,534
20🇨🇲 Cameroon2,431
21🇻🇪 Venezuela1,665
22🇲🇱 Mali92
Total120,201,460

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.

RankCountryRough 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.

RankRegionShare of Rough
Diamond Production (%)
Share of Rough
Diamond Value (%)
1Africa51.4%66.4%
2Europe34.9%32.9%
3North America13.5%52.8%
4South America0.2%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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