Dear Donald: Canada's Tariffs are Lower than America's

President Donald Trump insists that other advanced industrialized countries – including Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom – have been taking advantage of America's trade openness by charging substantially higher import duties than the United States does.

As Trump said last month: "all of these countries, including the European Union, they charge five times the tariff. We don't charge tariffs, essentially. They charge five times what we charge for tariffs. And I believe in the word reciprocal. You're going to charge five times? We're going to charge five times." But here's the truth: the US and other advanced industrialized economies all have very low average tariff rates, as the chart below shows. Scroll way down the list. They are all among the lowest-tariff countries in the world.

France, Germany and the UK – all members of the European Union, for now at least – charge an average tariff of 1.96% on imports.

The US average tariff is a bit lower: 1.67%.

Canada's is even lower: 1.56%. Facts still matter, Donald.