Medtech Canada Asks Governments to Keep Medical Devices Out of US-Canada Trade Fight

Medtech Canada, the national association for Canada's medical technology industry, on Wednesday called on Canada's federal and provincial governments to keep medical devices out of an escalating procurement dispute with the United States, after a US presidential memorandum targeted Canadian-origin products in federal purchasing.

"Patients cannot become pawns in a trade war," Nicole DeKort, the group's president and CEO, said in the association's statement.

What the memorandum directs

The memorandum, titled "Restoring Reciprocity in Government Procurement" and dated September 16, says Canada has "unreasonably imposed new barriers" to US companies through its "Buy Canadian" policy and that Canadian provinces have also limited US companies' access to their procurement markets. It notes that Canadian companies have access to all procurement the US covers at the federal level under the World Trade Organization Agreement on Government Procurement, which it puts at over $280 billion a year.

The document directs the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the US Trade Representative to identify Canadian-origin items in the federal civil procurement system that "can, where warranted, be removed or made non-available for purchase," and to notify agencies of domestic alternatives, in both cases to the extent permitted by law. The Trade Representative is also asked to report any change in Canadian policy that might warrant restoring an item's availability. The memorandum was published in the Federal Register on September 21.

Industry's case

Medtech Canada said the memorandum does not immediately ban Canadian medical technologies from US federal procurement and does not yet identify specific products for exclusion, which it said leaves an opening to keep medical technologies out of the dispute.

"This is precisely the type of escalation we have been warning about since provinces began introducing procurement restrictions against U.S. companies," DeKort said. "We understood why governments wanted to respond strongly to U.S. trade actions. But we have consistently said that health care should never become part of the retaliation."

The association cited Statistics Canada figures showing that Canada exported $2.7 billion in medical devices in 2023, about $2 billion of it to the United States, and imported $10.7 billion in medical devices, including $4.8 billion from the US. It also pointed to Health Canada data on supply: 69 medical-device shortages reported in 2024-25, a 19% increase from the previous year, affecting 1,439 individual devices.

"This is exactly the wrong time to add more uncertainty to health-care supply chains," DeKort said. "Canada is a relatively small global market and relies heavily on imported medical technologies."

Zero-for-Zero

The group repeated its call for what it calls a Zero-for-Zero approach to medical technologies moving between the two countries: no tariffs, no retaliatory tariffs and no discriminatory procurement restrictions. It urged provincial governments to remove procurement restrictions that affect medical technologies and to signal to the US that these products should be exempt from restrictions on the US side as well.

Medtech Canada said the medical technology industry employs more than 88,000 people in Canada. The memorandum asks the OMB Director to update the president on implementation from time to time; it sets no deadline for agencies to act.