The trade war that the US president Donald Trump has threatened to start with China, Mexico and Canada—the United States’ three largest trading partners—is likely to have a direct impact on all four countries’ art markets. And, given that two of those countries (China and the US) account for around 60% of the global art trade, the tariffs’ ripple effects may be felt worldwide. But tariffs on art could be uniquely devastating for the Canadian market, which depends in part on the cross-border flow of dealers, collectors and works, and is already suffering from an unfavourable exchange rate with the US dollar. (After a 30-day pause, Trump’s tariffs on all goods coming from Mexico and Canada are due to come into effect on Tuesday 4 March.)

The tariffs of between 10% and 25% on imported goods from these countries are intended to force change, according to a fact sheet released by the White House, which notes: “While trade accounts for 67% of Canada’s GDP, 73% of Mexico’s GDP and 37% of China’s GDP, it accounts for only 24% of US GDP. However, in 2023 the US trade deficit in goods was the world’s largest at over $1 trillion.” Traditionally, trade barriers such as tariffs do not apply to art, which in US law is duty free, but during his first administration Trump instituted a 25% tariff on all Chinese goods that included art. Joe Biden reduced the tariff on Chinese art to 7.5% and a recent notice in the US Federal Register suggests Trump may raise it again, to 17.5%.

The effect of the tariffs on the art markets in Canada and the US is uncertain, and art has not been included on lists of goods that would be part of a US tariff, although a retaliatory Canadian tariff on goods from the US already includes art on its list. During the first Trump administration, the tariffs against China were very broad and encompassed art. Some in the art market tried to get an exemption, but none was given. Still, according to Patty Gerstenblith, the director of the Center for Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law at DePaul University College of Law, “when the overall economy suffers—and it is anticipated that if large-scale, across-the-board tariffs are enacted, the US economy will suffer—the art market typically suffers as well”.

‘A fragile ecosystem’

Mackenzie Sinclair, the executive director of the Art Dealers Association of Canada (ADAC), says that her organisation supports a “free and open import and export of culture between international markets”, calling the art market “a fragile ecosystem. Any change can cause unforeseen consequences with a rippling impact across our sector.”

Higher prices for goods generally would result in less disposable income that might lead some would-be buyers of art to forgo purchases. That may be more likely in Canada than in the US, since the Canadian dollar has been declining in value relative to the US dollar (currently valued at around 70 cents relative to the US dollar) and tariffs of 25% would make the cost of art from the US even more expensive. Collectors in the US might be less affected, as “there isn’t that much demand here for Canadian artists’ work”, says Peter K. Tompa, a lawyer based in Washington, DC, whose practice provides advice and lobbying services related to the trade in cultural artefacts. “There’s not much demand here for Canadian antiques, either.”

Todd Hosfelt, the owner of Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco and vice-president of the board of the Art Dealers Association of America, doubts that “tariffs would affect people’s willingness to buy art. My sense at the moment is that rich people think they’re going to get richer during this administration, so they’re very willing to spend money.”

Canadians have been paying attention. Deborah Herringer Kiss, a dealer in Calgary, Alberta, and a past president of the ADAC, says that tariffs have been a hot topic for Canadian dealers since November, when Trump began threatening to impose them, “and even more so as of January. Many of our members and other Canadian galleries have clients in the US as well as participate in US art fairs. Roughly 76 Canadian art dealers/galleries participated in 28 US-based art fairs in 2024 and, during two fairs here in Canada, we saw 14 US spaces participate.” An economic trade war, she adds, would only suppress the cross-border buying and selling of art, “as well as possible participation in those art fairs”.

One of those already affected by the prospect of a trade war is the dealer Stephen Bulger, who says he “planned to present a solo booth of work by a Canadian artist at the Aipad fair in New York this April, but have had to cancel those plans because the 25% [tariff] puts us at a severe disadvantage. Although there is a one-month reprieve, exhibition schedules cannot change fast enough to accommodate a last-minute change.”

He says his gallery has had a strong record of success “selling work by American artists to Canadian private, corporate and institutional buyers, but that now seems unlikely due to the financial constraints such as currency fluctuation, sales taxes and the tariffs. As an example, an artwork costing US $10,000 converts to C$14,603, adding the 25% tariff brings that total to C$18,253.75, and the provincial/federal taxes bring the grand total to C$20,626.73.” Under such circumstances, previously affordable works become prohibitively expensive for some buyers.

The 30-day pause on tariffs is motivating Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario to complete the purchase of more than $1m in art from galleries in New York and Los Angeles by early March, according to its director and chief executive officer, Stephan Jost. Going forward, however, “the tariffs will move our acquisition priorities to more efficient markets—Zürich, Paris, Toronto, Mexico”. He predicts the tariffs “will have a chilling effect on the art market in North America”.

An optimistic view

The Toronto-based dealer and ADAC board member Simon Bentley says he is “not unhappy with the prospect of protectionism. We need Canadians to buy Canadian art and not just look to buy art by artists in the United States.”

Similarly, Rob Cowley—the president of Cowley Abbott auction house in Montreal, Toronto and Calgary—says the pandemic forced the company to pivot to online and overseas sales. Over the past five years, its international art department has grown, the result of a “growth in interest in post-war Canadian art”, and the company is regularly “sending art overseas. There obviously are drawbacks in tariffs, but overall we see a plus for the Canadian art market.”

Participants in and organisers of Canada’s biggest art fair, Art Toronto, in October, have already been looking to lessen their reliance on the US market, according to the fair’s director, Mia Nielsen. “We are expanding our gallery outreach efforts beyond the US market,” she says. “For 2025 we’re working with a UK-based curator to deepen ties to the European scene, as well as Asia and South America.” She adds that expanding the market for Canadian dealers’ work has been a longtime goal of the fair, but “this fluid situation in regards to the threat of US tariffs shines a spotlight on the need for greater diversification”.

Those in the US will be impacted by the tariffs, however. Anne-Laure Alléhaut, a member of the art and museum law group at the New York firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, says “we are already seeing impact on the primary market for artists working on commissioned works with metals or other primary materials [imported from Canada] that may be impacted by tariffs”. It may have “a chilling effect on the creation of artworks and for artists using those materials”. Tariffs are less likely to inhibit US purchases of art from Canada, she says, than to lower the prices, making potential purchasers “more cautious about the price paid”.