The Honorable Jamieson Greer
United States Trade Representative
600 17th Street NW
Washington, DC 20508


Dear Ambassador Greer:

My name is Jennifer Young, and I serve as the Chief Executive Officer of the Technology Councils of North America (TECNA). TECNA represents approximately 60 regional technology trade associations that collectively serve over 22,000 innovative, technology-driven small and medium-sized businesses throughout North America. As the July 2026 joint review of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) approaches, I write on behalf of our members to express TECNA's strong support for renewing and extending this foundational agreement.

Per Article 34.7 of the USMCA, the July 2026 joint review offers a historic opportunity: all three parties can affirm extension of the agreement through 2042, locking in stability and delivering the long-term certainty that businesses need to invest, hire, and grow. We urge the Administration to seize this opportunity and confirm extension of the USMCA with minimal disruption to the integrated North American trade framework it underpins.

Canada Is America’s Most Important Export Market
American jobs depend not only on what we import, but critically on what we export. Canada is the United States’ number one export market by a significant margin. In 2025, U.S. goods exports to Canada reached $336.5 billion, and U.S. services exports added another $90.3 billion—giving the United States a $33.2 billion services trade surplus with Canada. Total two-way goods and services trade between the United States and Canada reached approximately $877 billion in 2025, making Canada our second-largest overall trading partner.

Thirty-four U.S. states export more goods to Canada than to any other foreign economy, and those exports support approximately 1.4 million American jobs. Every business day, an estimated $2.5 to $3.6 billion in goods and services crosses the U.S.-Canada border. The USMCA has strengthened and expanded these export opportunities, creating and sustaining jobs across the country. Undermining this agreement, or allowing it to lapse, would jeopardize this critical market access for American companies at precisely the moment when global competition is intensifying.

North American Supply Chains Are American Supply Chains
The automotive sector, aerospace industry, and technology manufacturing have spent 75 years building a seamless North American supply chain. Parts like steel and aluminum cross the border up to eight times before final assembly. Canadian and Mexican suppliers contribute over 40% of U.S. vehicle parts, directly supporting 3 million American jobs. Critically, approximately 72% of U.S. imports from Canada consist of industrial inputs destined for further American manufacturing—these are not foreign finished goods competing with U.S. products, but the raw materials and components that power U.S. factories.

Without the predictability and reduced barriers the USMCA provides, U.S. manufacturers could face an estimated $20–$30 billion in annual cost increases, and distrupt supply chains across industries and significantly weaken American competitiveness. In 2024, goods and services trade within North America totaled an estimated $1.93 trillion. Since USMCA took effect, intra-regional trade has grown by approximately 37%, driven by industrial supplies, autos, and manufacturing integration. North America as a whole accounts for 30% of global GDP—a position of strength that depends on the agreement’s continued stability.

Canada Is America’s Irreplaceable Critical Mineral Supplier
As you know, most of what Canada sells to the United States is not finished goods competing with American products, but essential inputs that U.S. companies require to manufacture their own. Canada supplies approximately 50% of U.S. refined zinc, 32% of U.S. tellurium, 26% of U.S. niobium (critical for defense applications), and 23% of U.S. nickel and aluminum. Canada is the only North American producer of gallium—a mineral China recently banned from export to the U.S.—and the continent’s sole source of cobalt sulfate for electric vehicle batteries. Canada is also the U.S.’s largest foreign supplier of energy, including crude oil, natural gas, and electricity.

These are not peripheral inputs. They are the building blocks of the industries America must lead in the 21st century—clean energy, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, and national defense. Canada is their most irreplaceable supplier. The USMCA framework ensures stable, predictable access to these resources. Disrupting that framework risks surrendering ground in the global competition for critical mineral supply chains to China and other adversaries.

The USMCA Is Essential to the Digital Services Economy
Beyond traditional manufacturing, the USMCA has been critical to the digital services sector. The agreement explicitly prohibits duties on digital trade products and protects cross-border data flows. The U.S. exports billions of dollars annually in digital services to Canada, including cloud computing, financial technology, artificial intelligence solutions, and IT consulting. These services have historically operated in a largely tax-free environment, allowing American technology firms to remain competitive in the Canadian market.

Canada’s 3% Digital Services Tax (DST), enacted in June 2024 and applied retroactively to January 2022, has already become a flashpoint in bilateral relations. The USMCA provides the structured dispute settlement framework—the most robust enforcement mechanism in any trade agreement in history—to resolve precisely these kinds of emerging digital trade disputes through negotiation rather than escalation. Without the USMCA, American technology firms would have no established forum to challenge discriminatory digital taxes or data localization requirements, at an estimated annual cost of $2.3 billion and thousands of American technology sector jobs.

The Deep Investment Relationship Underscores the Stakes
The two-way investment relationship between the U.S. and Canada further underscores the depth of this integration and the cost of disruption. The U.S. holds a foreign direct investment (FDI) position in Canada of approximately $452 billion, while Canada is the fourth-largest source of FDI in the U.S. economy at approximately $672 billion—a combined two-way investment relationship of nearly $1.2 trillion. Canadian FDI in the U.S. directly supports upwards of 970,000 American jobs. This is not a trade relationship that can be casually disrupted without profound and lasting economic consequence.

The USMCA Has Delivered
The evidence of USMCA’s success is clear. Since its ratification, trade in goods and services within North America has surged by 50%, and investment in new ventures has increased by 136%. In 2025, compliance rates for USMCA-preference claims rose sharply, with estimates suggesting that 80–85% or more of eligible Canada-U.S. trade is now USMCA-certified. Over 85% of Canada-U.S. trade remained tariff-free under USMCA preferences even amid broader tariff actions, a testament to the agreement’s resilience and the incentives it creates for businesses on both sides of the border to invest in compliant supply chains.

Allowing the USMCA to lapse or enter prolonged renegotiation would put these gains at risk, introducing exactly the kind of uncertainty that causes businesses to delay investment, restructure supply chains, and reduce hiring. The cost to American workers and companies would be immediate and significant.

Our Request to the Office of the United States Trade Representative
TECNA urges you and the Office of the United States Trade Representative to:

• Affirm extension of the USMCA through 2042 at the July 2026 joint review, locking in sixteen years of trade certainty for American businesses, workers, and investors;
• Minimize disruption to the integrated North American trade framework by pursuing targeted modernization rather than wholesale renegotiation; and
• Utilize the agreement’s dispute settlement mechanisms to resolve bilateral irritants—including the Canadian Digital Services Tax—through structured negotiation rather than escalatory tariff measures.

The July 2026 joint review is a historic inflection point. The data is unambiguous: the U.S.-Canada trade relationship supports hundreds of billions of dollars in exports, 1.4 million American jobs tied directly to Canadian exports, over a trillion dollars in two-way investment, and the critical mineral and energy supply chains that underpin American manufacturing and national security. Affirming and extending the USMCA will deliver the stable, rules-based trade environment that North American businesses, workers, and innovators need to compete and win globally.

TECNA and its member organizations stand ready to support the Administration’s efforts to reach a positive outcome and would welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues further. Please feel free to contact me directly at jyoung@tecna.org or 412-545-3493.

Sincerely,

Jennifer G. Young
Chief Executive Officer
Technology Councils of North America (TECNA)
P.O. Box 159, Sewickley, PA 15143
jyoung@tecna.org | 412-545-3493

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