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 – take 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 United States 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.