The Canada procurement memorandum asks for removal by any lawful means, and leaves the reciprocity statute unnamed

The memorandum begins from a number. Canadian companies, it says, have access to all procurement the United States covers at the federal level under the World Trade Organization Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), which “amounts to over $280 billion annually”¹. The figure that measures what Washington actually buys from Canada is far smaller. By The Logic’s analysis of federal award data, the U.S. government committed US$2.1 billion to Canadian-origin goods and services in fiscal 2025, and about US$1.7 billion of it came from the Defense Department⁸. The memorandum of September 16, published in the Federal Register on September 21, reaches only the federal civil procurement system¹. As a policy instrument it is therefore aimed less at a volume of trade than at a principle: that access to government markets is a reciprocal bargain, and that Canada’s “Buy Canadian” rules have broken it^1,2.

The instrument: a memorandum that names no statute

The document is addressed to the Secretary of War, the U.S. Trade Representative, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy, the Administrator of General Services and the NASA administrator, and it rests on “the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America”¹. It cites no section of any trade law. Its operative verbs are hedged throughout: “to the extent appropriate and consistent with law,” and “all steps permitted by applicable law”¹.

The statute written for this ground is Title III of the Trade Agreements Act of 1979. Section 301 lets the President waive discriminatory purchasing requirements for eligible products of countries he designates³. A country may be designated only if it has become a party to the GPA or the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and “will provide appropriate reciprocal competitive government procurement opportunities” to U.S. products and suppliers³. Section 301(c) adds that the President “may modify or withdraw any waiver” or designation³. Section 302 supplies the consequence. For procurement covered by the agreement, the President must prohibit purchases of otherwise eligible products from countries that are not designated, unless there are no U.S. or eligible offers or those offers cannot meet the government’s needs⁴.

Read together, the two sections make reciprocity the condition of access, which is the memorandum’s own theme. Yet the memorandum does not withdraw a designation, and it does not invoke section 302’s prohibition¹. It instead asks OMB and USTR, working with the members of the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council, to find what can be done within existing law¹. Whether that work ends in a formal change to Canada’s status under the 1979 Act, in narrower contracting decisions, or in nothing beyond the notice of domestic alternatives is left open by the text.

The mechanism: what agencies have been told to do

The directive has four parts¹. OMB and USTR are to identify Canadian-origin items in the federal civil system “that can, where warranted, be removed or made non-available for purchase”¹. The OMB director is to notify relevant agencies of “domestic alternatives to Canadian origin items”¹. The director is to update the President on progress “from time to time”¹. And the head of each agency “is authorized to and shall take all appropriate measures” within the agency’s authority, with power to redelegate under section 301 of title 3¹.

USTR receives a standing monitoring role. It is to keep watching Canada’s treatment of U.S.-origin items in Canadian federal and provincial procurement, report circumstances that might call for further action, and also report circumstances that “might warrant restoring a Canadian origin item’s availability for Federal civil procurement,” such as a change in Canadian policy¹. The memorandum sets no deadline, defines no origin standard and attaches no product list¹.

Does the order reach defense contracts or state purchasing?

On its terms, no. The removal directive covers the federal civil procurement system, and nothing in it addresses state or local purchasing¹. The Logic notes that the civil limitation implies an exemption for defense spending and reports that nearly US$1.3 billion of fiscal 2025 commitments went to bulk explosives, combat and tactical vehicles and military-grade ammunition from Canada⁸. It also cites a 2023 Export Development Canada analysis, using 2015 data, that estimated Canadian suppliers won about US$15 billion from all levels of U.S. government that year, of which the federal share was US$624 million⁸.

Earlier this month the President had framed the threat more narrowly. According to Bloomberg News, he said in a social media post that Canadian goods and services sold under the so-called Multiple Award Schedule are worth more than $50 billion a year; a senior administration official later said Canadian companies do not account for all of that market⁹. The Logic counted just 50 companies with Canadian addresses on the General Services Administration’s list of pre-approved suppliers⁸.

The effect: the Canadian policy on the other side of the ledger

The memorandum’s grievance is specific. Canada, it says, “has unreasonably imposed new barriers to United States companies seeking to access the Canadian government procurement market,” among other things by establishing preferences for Canadian products and content¹. The White House fact sheet places those preferences with the provinces as well, and says U.S. companies “no longer receive equal treatment in the Canadian government procurement system”².

The Canadian measures are documented. Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the Buy Canadian Policy on September 5, 2025, promising to move “from an approach of ‘best effort’ to a clear obligation to support Canadian industries”⁵. The plan called for a policy requiring suppliers to source key materials, initially steel and softwood lumber, from Canadian companies in defense and construction procurements above a threshold, plus local content requirements and the full implementation of a reciprocal procurement policy by spring 2026⁵. The Government of Canada says the Buy Canadian Policy came into effect December 16, 2025⁶. The Logic reports that Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia adopted their own versions⁸.

Canada’s reciprocal procurement policy uses almost the same logic as the U.S. statute. It describes Canada’s tradition as an “open-by-default procurement system” and states that Canadian suppliers “often do not receive an equivalent level of access to foreign procurement markets”⁷. Under it, a foreign supplier may compete for a non-defense federal contract only if a government procurement agreement between Canada and the supplier’s jurisdiction applies to that procurement⁷. Contracts below C$10,000 and those at least 51 percent for defense goods or services are excluded⁷. That policy, by its design, turns on treaty coverage. The memorandum’s complaint concerns the preference and content rules layered on top of it^1,6.

Who bears the cost depends on the list OMB and USTR produce. Canadian suppliers on federal civil contracts face exclusion; agencies face the price and availability of the domestic alternatives OMB identifies¹. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Alex Greco told The Logic: “Businesses are still getting clarity on the scope, timing and treatment of existing contracts”⁸. A spokesperson for Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Ottawa would review the measures “with a focus on the best interest of Canadian businesses and workers”⁸.

The longer view: reciprocity as the 1979 bargain

The idea that procurement access should be withheld from countries that withhold it is as old as the U.S. implementing law. Section 302 of the 1979 Act was written “to encourage additional countries to become parties to the Agreement and to provide appropriate reciprocal competitive government procurement opportunities”⁴. It also ordered a 1981 report to Congress on developed countries that kept their principal purchasing entities out of the agreement, with an evaluation of alternatives that included “prohibiting the procurement of products of such countries” by U.S. entities outside the agreement⁴. The tool the memorandum reaches for in 2026 was named in the statute almost half a century ago, though the memorandum does not cite it.

The procurement order joins a sequence of measures aimed at Canada this year. The President’s use of section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, first for tariffs and on September 8 for import bans, is examined in this journal’s essays on the section 338 Canada tariffs and on the trade commission’s monitoring role; the fact sheet cites those September 8 actions alongside the memorandum². Bloomberg News reported that the order followed a September 16 speech in which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered to make Canada an “associate member”⁹.

What comes next is procedural. OMB owes the President periodic updates, USTR owes reports on Canadian policy, and agencies hold delegated authority to act¹. No product list, FAR change or origin rule had been published by September 25^1,8. The memorandum’s final instruction runs in both directions: USTR is to say when Canadian items should be restored, as well as when more should be removed¹.