To tariff or not to tariff? What Trump’s latest tariff announcement means for the Canadian economy

Newsrooms, dinner tables and just about everyone in between woke up on the edge of their seats the morning of April 2 – the day U.S. President Donald Trump dubbed ‘liberation day’ – but heading to bed, it was more of an uneasy feeling of ‘now what?’

A few days later as the dust has started to settle, the confusion and ambiguity, however, has not. Although Canada was not on Trump’s exhaustive reciprocal tariff list, 25 per cent tariffs on foreign-made vehicles exported to America did apply to Canadian cars.

Prime Minister Mark Carney struck back with 25 per cent retaliatory tariffs on foreign-made vehicles imported to Canada, but the lines remained blurred with the Canada-U.S. trade future. What tariffs are in place, what aren’t, how many jobs are on the line, how much more expensive will cars be, and whose economy will be feeling the effects the worst?

Host Cormac Mac Sweeney speaks with principal economist with the Conference Board of Canada, Richard Forbes, who gets to the bottom of Trump’s latest tariff announcement.

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