Canadian Commercial Real Estate Investors Shrug Off Trade War, Accelerate U.S. Asset Purchases to $9 Billion

As U.S. President Donald Trump asserts that America has been "ripped off" for 50 years and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney courts global capital by pitching his nation as a safe haven, the political consensus in 2026 suggested a deep freeze in cross-border investment. The actual capital flows show the opposite. Canadian commercial real estate buyers spent $9 billion on U.S. assets over the 12 months ending in June, nearly doubling the $5 billion rolling average recorded at the end of the prior quarter. Rather than retreating amid the tit-for-tat tariffs, Canadian institutions are accelerating their acquisitions south of the border.[1][2][3]

The data, drawn from Colliers' latest Global Capital Flows report, illustrates a stark divergence between macroeconomic trade policy and localized real estate strategy. Canadian firms directed 32 percent of their total capital raised for global acquisitions into the United States during the year ending in June. That represents a sharp increase from the 19.3 percent share recorded for the rolling 12-month period just one quarter earlier. The surge places the U.S. firmly ahead of other major targets; Canadian investors deployed a combined $4.9 billion into Japan, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Australia over the same timeframe.[1]

The resilience of this capital pipeline stems from the fundamental nature of property markets. “We are not an export industry. We don't build apartments to sell them to Japan,” said Adam Jacobs, the head of Canada research at Colliers. Because real estate returns rely on domestic renters and businesses rather than cross-border supply chains, the sector is largely insulated from the immediate friction of import duties. “Everything is local and more tied to local demographics and local job markets,” Jacobs noted.[1]

Across their global portfolios, Canadian firms allocated 32 percent of their deployed capital toward multifamily housing, 27 percent to industrial assets, and 18 percent to office buildings. The sheer scale of the U.S. market remains the primary draw for these massive institutional allocations. The United States pulled in $28.3 billion in total global inbound real estate capital during the most recent period, overtaking the United Kingdom by $3.4 billion to reclaim the top spot worldwide.[1]

For the largest Canadian pension funds and asset managers, the depth of the U.S. market offers diversification that cannot be achieved domestically. Jacobs pointed out that specific institutional strategies, such as aggregating student housing facilities, require a volume of available inventory that simply does not exist in Canada. Consequently, major players are executing multi-billion-dollar transactions despite the political noise.[1]

In July 2026, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) partnered with Brookfield Asset Management to take LXP Industrial Trust private in a $5.2 billion all-cash transaction. During the same month, Brookfield acquired a 49 percent stake in a $2.1 billion medical office portfolio from Denver-based real estate investment trust Healthpeak Properties. These moves underscore a strategic reliance on American commercial real estate for long-term yield.[1]

While the Colliers data captures the period just before the most recent escalation in the trade war, industry analysts do not expect the new tariffs to alter the trajectory of institutional capital. The structural drivers of real estate demand—population growth, e-commerce logistics, and healthcare needs—operate independently of the manufacturing and agricultural disputes dominating the diplomatic agenda.[1]

“When we're talking about big investors with $50B looking at diversifying their portfolio or getting into an alternative asset, I don't think that because there's tariffs on molasses and motorcycles it is necessarily stopping those deals from happening,” Jacobs said. As long as the U.S. market provides the liquidity and scale required by Canadian institutions, the cross-border real estate pipeline is positioned to remain robust regardless of the prevailing trade rhetoric.[1]