Ontario pulled 3,600 American alcohol products off shelves and restaurant menus. Irish whiskey makers saw the gap and filled it.
That is the blunt reality behind the trade numbers now linking Ireland and Canada more tightly than ever. The US tariff war, launched by President Donald Trump and met with Canadian retaliation, has reshaped buying patterns in ways that look durable. Ontario’s Minister of the Environment, Todd McCarthy MPP, told RTÉ News that trade between the two nations has “definitely escalated” because of the American tariffs. He was not speaking in abstractions. He was describing bar owners in Toronto and Ottawa swapping Kentucky bourbon for Irish single malt.
The numbers back him. Since 2017, when the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) was provisionally implemented by Ireland, trade with Canada has grown 98%. That is nearly a doubling in less than a decade. But the real surge came after the US tariffs hit. Eoin Ó Catháin, director of the Irish Whiskey Association, reported “huge growth” year on year in Canada. Irish whiskey exports there now exceed 420,000 cases — a “huge jump even when you compare it to two years ago,” he said. He pointed directly to the instability the US tariffs created. “We’re seeing the direct impact of that instability in the global trading environment,” Ó Catháin said. “And again, I suppose a greater appreciation for those trading partners who are a bit more certain on whom each country can rely.”
The Ontario alcohol ban is the key mechanism. Premier Doug Ford ordered US-made alcohol off the shelves of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario — one of the world’s biggest single buyers of alcohol. More than 3,600 products vanished. Distributors and retailers scrambled for replacements. Irish whiskey, already tariff-free under CETA’s provisional rules, was the obvious substitute. It still faces the standard 15% tariff on EU goods entering the US. But in Canada, it faces zero.
This is not a short-term blip. The forces behind it are structural. CETA itself is moving toward full ratification. RTÉ News understands that Ireland is on track to approve the deal next week, following Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to Ireland. That would lock in tariff-free access permanently and remove the provisional status that has hung over the agreement since 2017. Ireland had delayed ratification for years, but the US trade war has concentrated minds. A fully ratified CETA makes Canada a more reliable trading partner than the United States — and that reliability is now the central currency in global trade.
The whiskey numbers tell the story of a sector that read the room. Irish distillers saw the Ontario ban coming. They saw American whiskey locked out. They moved. Ó Catháin’s 420,000 cases represent real bottles on real shelves, displacing American competitors who cannot sell into Canada’s most populous province. The 15% tariff on US-bound Irish whiskey is still a problem, but the Canadian market is growing fast enough to offset some of that pain.
McCarthy framed the shift as a deliberate strategy. “It has definitely escalated,” he said of bilateral trade, pointing to the US tariffs as the accelerant. He did not predict when or whether the American tariffs would end. He did not need to. The trade routes are already redrawn. Irish whiskey is on Ontario shelves. American whiskey is not. That imbalance will not correct itself overnight even if the tariffs vanish tomorrow — because distribution networks, buyer relationships and consumer habits have already shifted.
For Ireland, the timing matters. Ratifying CETA next week locks in access to a market of 40 million people, with a provincial alcohol monopoly that can move massive volumes. For Canada, it locks in a European partner that is not the United States. Both sides know what that means. The 98% trade growth since 2017 is the baseline. The new numbers, driven by the tariff war, will be higher. And they will keep climbing.
