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Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
America's terrible tariffs could actually be a huge win for Canada's economy
The whole thing about Canadians is that they're remarkably nice. Except lately, they haven't been feeling so warm and fuzzy, namely toward their neighbors to the south. Given everything that's going on — President Donald Trump's on-and-off trade war, his remarks about making the country the 51st state — Canada has a right to be annoyed with the United States. If your longtime bestie suddenly turned on you for no apparent reason, you'd be miffed, too. The US's sudden shift to frenemy status is going to cause some pain for Canada in the near term, especially as it stands to be a big economic loser from Trump's tariff tantrum. But ultimately, the turmoil may be a blessing in disguise for the Canucks. It's an opportunity for the country to step out of the star-spangled shadow and do its own thing. "It's really kind of a decoupling moment that is scary to watch in the short term. In the medium to long term, I have to say, it's an important wake-up call for Canada," says Matthew Holmes, the chief of public policy at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. "If I look back on this in 20 years, I hope to be able to say that this woke Canada up to the need to be a little more strategic and have a little bit more of its own agency in the economy and in the kind of economy we want." If the US doesn't want to be as good of friends anymore, fine, Canada can make new, better friends, anyway. The US and Canadian economies are deeply intertwined. A shared language, geographic proximity, and interconnected supply chains have made the countries convenient strategic partners for decades. Three-quarters of Canada's exports go to the United States, and nearly half of its imported goods come from the US. In 2024, Canada was the third-largest source of imports to the US, behind China and Mexico. Canada was also the top destination for exports from the US. Several of the two countries' biggest industries, including automotives and energy, are highly interwoven with one another. Trump's belligerent stance toward Canada has thrown the country for a loop. While Canada isn't subject to the 10% blanket tariffs he's placed on imports from other countries, he's targeted specific areas with import taxes, including 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum, 25% tariffs on cars, 10% tariffs on potash and energy, and 25% tariffs on imports not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal (formerly known as NAFTA). He's also planning to place a 50% tariff on copper come August. Most recently, the president threatened to put a 35% tariff on imports from Canada, blaming its retaliatory tariffs for the move, though it wasn't immediately clear what goods this would apply to. (The president says this is about fentanyl, though very little fentanyl comes to the US over the Canadian border.) A Trump administration official said in an email that they expected goods currently tariffed at 25% to go up to 35%, though no final decisions have been made by the president. Given Trump's persistent flip-flopping on tariffs, it's not clear whether they will actually take hold. This constant state of flux is making investors, at the very least, a bit more casual about the whole thing. The foreign exchange market, which tracks currency fluctuations, would indicate investors aren't too worried about it — the Canadian dollar isn't swinging based on Trump's pronouncements and has strengthened in recent months. "The market, so to speak, is seeing through a lot of this rabble-rousing," says Peter Morrow, an economist at the University of Toronto. The TACO trade — which is short for Trump Always Chickens Out and proxy for the idea that the president backs down from his most aggressive threats — is alive in the Great White North, too. Regardless, the American president's trade antics are taking a toll on Canada. It's the country most hurt by the US trade war so far — the US is second. An analysis from the Yale Budget Lab found Trump's tariffs and Canadian countermeasures could cause Canada's economy to shrink by 2.1% in the long term. The trade dispute increases the chances of a recession in Canada, and it threatens to increase inflation. It also injects an incredible amount of uncertainty into the economy. It's next to impossible for Canadian businesses to plan for the future when they have no idea what the guy in the White House is going to do, day-to-day. "It's not only the tariff wall; it's kind of a wall of uncertainty that's going up between the two countries," says Julian Karaguesian, a course lecturer in McGill University's economics department. "The immediate effect it's having in the short term is a cooling effect on business investment, which is the dynamic part of the economy." Canada isn't taking the economic punch in the face lying down. Canada's new prime minister, Mark Carney, and the Canadian public have taken a hockey-esque "elbows up" approach to the US. A "Buy Canadian" movement has swept the nation. Canadians are swapping out American-made products and groceries for national ones, guided by forums and apps that help distinguish locally made goods from their Yankee counterparts. Liquor stores have pulled American whiskeys off the shelves. Instead of going to McDonald's, Canadians are hitting up A&W. They're opening up the CBC Gem streaming app to see what's on there instead of Netflix. "Brand damage can last a long time. People won't remember in 10 years why they don't like Nike anymore, but they will still think slightly ill of it," a guy who runs a website called Shop Canadian Stuff tells me. He spoke with me on the condition of anonymity, because his job doesn't know about his nationalist side hustle. Evan Worman, one of the moderators of a Buy Canadian subreddit, tells me that Canadians redirecting their purchasing power is a loss for the US because it's opening people's eyes to the quality of non-American stuff. "People are going to find a lot of the products that are getting imported from Europe have better safety standards, have higher quality control than the US, and it doesn't come with all the hang-ups and baggage of buying from somebody who wants to invade you," he says. Worman is originally from Alaska and has lived in Canada for a decade. When people don't realize he's not Canadian, he doesn't correct them. "People are genuinely very angry at us right now," he says. The attacks are also fostering a willingness to reshape the domestic Canadian economy: Local governments are getting rid of internal trade barriers that have prevented goods from flowing between provinces. "We've had, for decades, stupid, unnecessary rules between Canadian provinces," says Dan Kelly, the president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. "There has been a resurgence of that among our members that are now saying, 'Well, wait a minute, if the US market is uncertain, then I'll send my goods to Ontario rather than to New York.'" The federal government says knocking down interprovincial trade restrictions could boost Canada's economy by $200 billion annually. Karaguesian believes that may be an overstatement, but that and the domestic focus are emblematic of a bigger shift. "The people that are running the United States are saying we don't really have any allies right now — we have adversaries, and we have countries we can tell what to do," making the emphasis on a more unified Canadian economy all the more important, he says. Also on the shorter-term front, many Canadian businesses that hadn't yet bothered to get compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement because previous tariff levels were so negligible are getting their ducks in a row. Holmes, from the Chamber of Commerce, says that pre-Trump, only about half of the products crossing the border were USMCA compliant, because companies hadn't bothered to do the paperwork, but over the past four months, that's gotten to about two-thirds. He estimates that 90% of Canadian products should be compliant overall but notes that "it's just the work of getting it done." Canadian companies aren't rushing to move their operations to the US — which seems to be, in large part, Trump's goal in all of this — but they are adapting. "They're diversifying their sales, and they're diversifying their suppliers," says Patrick Gill, the vice president of the Business Data Lab at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. "And so they're looking to other international markets where Canada has established free trade agreements." The United States' attitudes have sent Canada seeking improved trade agreements and relations elsewhere, including Europe, Asia, and the Global South. In an attempt to wean itself off the US, Canada is looking to expand where it sources from and where it sells. But just how far to go is a difficult calculation. "Some people say that Canada should take the easy win, stay linked to the US, and just ride it out. And there's other people who say that the United States is not a reliable trading partner anymore, and that Canada should strengthen its relationships with other countries. But developing those other relationships is not easy," says Morrow, from the University of Toronto. Canada may be at its breaking point. Canadian political leaders and nationals feel like the US will never be satisfied, no matter how much ground they give. They find the 51st state jokes really offensive. And as much as the US-Canada relationship is extra strained right now, Canadians have long been skeptical of their larger neighbors. The US-Canada free trade agreement that predated NAFTA in the late 1980s was unpopular in Canada. Post-9/11, Canada resisted pressure from the US to join the Iraq invasion and chafed at President George W. Bush's "you're with us or against us" mentality. Some Canadian policymakers felt slighted by the Obama administration's attempts at pushing "Buy American" provisions and by the US-focused investments in the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act. The US and Canada have long grumbled over dairy and lumber. "Canada has a strong skepticism of the US even during the best of times," Morrow says, citing a quote from former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (Justin's father), who said living next to the US was like "sleeping with an elephant — no matter how friendly or even-tempered is the beast, if one can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt." "The United States, for its entire history, has been a protectionist country except the time from the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 to the 9/11 attacks," Karaguesian says. "The United States was the biggest defender of free trade at the turn of the century because they were winning at that game." Trump says the US has "all the cards" in trade relations with Canada. The US certainly has more cards, but Canada isn't playing with an empty hand. The country has felt emboldened to strengthen trade relations with other partners, to revive its own manufacturing base, and to separate itself economically, culturally, and otherwise from the US. Kelly, from CFIB, compares Canada's retaliatory tariffs to economic chemotherapy — "you take the poison in order to try to fight the larger battle" — and adds that it says something that the country is so willing to dig in. "There is fairly significant resolve among Canadian businesses to press back," he says. To be sure, Trump's trade war is doing real damage to Canada — and, it should be said, to the US. Continuing the tit-for-tat won't mean mutually assured destruction for the neighboring countries, but it is one that will harm both, even if to different degrees. Canada's 40 million population can't replace the US's 340 million in terms of a consumer market. It will continue to depend on the US and, increasingly, others for commerce and trade. And the idea of a complete decoupling is quite unfathomable, unless Americans want to spend a ton more on energy and the entire North American auto sector is overhauled. At the moment, Canadians are fired up and holding their own. They don't appear to be poised to back down anytime soon — or to forget what's happening now. "Our elites need to wake up to the full nightmare of what Donald Trump's administration means in terms of trade," Karaguesian says. Much of the Canadian population already has — and years down the line, it could very well be to their country's benefit. Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy. Read the original article on Business Insider
Ottawa Citizen
2 days ago
- Politics
- Ottawa Citizen
How John Hannaford led the public service through transition and turmoil
If John Hannaford had a superpower, it might have been his ability to help a team reach consensus. Article content Rather than rule with an iron fist, he would engage in what former colleagues called 'deep listening.' Article content Recommended Videos Article content 'He really was thoughtful about that, and I think purposeful, right?' said Marta Morgan, a former colleague of Hannaford and retired public service executive. 'He wanted to pull out the best in people, and one way of doing that is making people know that they're heard and they're part of the discussion.' Article content Article content Morgan recalled that when Hannaford led meetings, he would prioritize listening and ensure that everyone in the room was given a chance to share their thoughts. Article content Former colleagues have said those listening skills served him well in his career as he navigated turbulent times. Hannaford retired in early July as his successor, Michael Sabia, took the reins of the federal public service. Article content Before he became clerk of the Privy Council, Hannaford was deputy minister at Natural Resources. In that role, Hannaford led a team of government executives on a tour of Western Canada when that part of the country was feeling particularly alienated from the federal government in Ottawa. Article content Daniel Quan-Watson, another former colleague and retired public service executive, said the tour embodied Hannaford's 'commitment to listening and genuine interest and fascination.' Article content Article content 'I think it's such an important signal of Canada's public service, being there, even in difficult places, difficult listening, difficult conversations and being present for people,' Quan-Watson added. Article content Article content Hannaford would perhaps agree, having said in a 'fireside chat' with the Canada School of Public Service that he 'didn't have that objective' in his career planning. Article content But he was trusted by then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, having served as a PCO advisor on foreign affairs and defence from 2015 to 2019. He also served as deputy minister of international trade, where he was involved in renegotiating NAFTA, which then became the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement.
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Canada First, Eh!
The whole thing about Canadians is that they're remarkably nice. Except lately, they haven't been feeling so warm and fuzzy, namely toward their neighbors to the south. Given everything that's going on — President Donald Trump's on-and-off trade war, his remarks about making the country the 51st state — Canada has a right to be annoyed with the United States. If your longtime bestie suddenly turned on you for no apparent reason, you'd be miffed, too. The US's sudden shift to frenemy status is going to cause some pain for Canada in the near term, especially as it stands to be a big economic loser from Trump's tariff tantrum. But ultimately, the turmoil may be a blessing in disguise for the Canucks. It's an opportunity for the country to step out of the star-spangled shadow and do its own thing. "It's really kind of a decoupling moment that is scary to watch in the short term. In the medium to long term, I have to say, it's an important wake-up call for Canada," says Matthew Holmes, the chief of public policy at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. "If I look back on this in 20 years, I hope to be able to say that this woke Canada up to the need to be a little more strategic and have a little bit more of its own agency in the economy and in the kind of economy we want." If the US doesn't want to be as good of friends anymore, fine, Canada can make new, better friends, anyway. The US and Canadian economies are deeply intertwined. A shared language, geographic proximity, and interconnected supply chains have made the countries convenient strategic partners for decades. Three-quarters of Canada's exports go to the United States, and nearly half of its imported goods come from the US. In 2024, Canada was the third-largest source of imports to the US, behind China and Mexico. Canada was also the top destination for exports from the US. Several of the two countries' biggest industries, including automotives and energy, are highly interwoven with one another. Trump's belligerent stance toward Canada has thrown the country for a loop. While Canada isn't subject to the 10% blanket tariffs he's placed on imports from other countries, he's targeted specific areas with import taxes, including 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum, 25% tariffs on cars, 10% tariffs on potash and energy, and 25% tariffs on imports not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal (formerly known as NAFTA). He's also planning to place a 50% tariff on copper come August. Most recently, the president threatened to put a 35% tariff on imports from Canada, blaming its retaliatory tariffs for the move, though it wasn't immediately clear what goods this would apply to. (The president says this is about fentanyl, though very little fentanyl comes to the US over the Canadian border.) A Trump administration official said in an email that they expected goods currently tariffed at 25% to go up to 35%, though no final decisions have been made by the president. Given Trump's persistent flip-flopping on tariffs, it's not clear whether they will actually take hold. This constant state of flux is making investors, at the very least, a bit more casual about the whole thing. The foreign exchange market, which tracks currency fluctuations, would indicate investors aren't too worried about it — the Canadian dollar isn't swinging based on Trump's pronouncements and has strengthened in recent months. "The market, so to speak, is seeing through a lot of this rabble-rousing," says Peter Morrow, an economist at the University of Toronto. The TACO trade — which is short for Trump Always Chickens Out and proxy for the idea that the president backs down from his most aggressive threats — is alive in the Great White North, too. People won't remember in 10 years why they don't like Nike anymore, but they will still think slightly ill of it. Regardless, the American president's trade antics are taking a toll on Canada. It's the country most hurt by the US trade war so far — the US is second. An analysis from the Yale Budget Lab found Trump's tariffs and Canadian countermeasures could cause Canada's economy to shrink by 2.1% in the long term. The trade dispute increases the chances of a recession in Canada, and it threatens to increase inflation. It also injects an incredible amount of uncertainty into the economy. It's next to impossible for Canadian businesses to plan for the future when they have no idea what the guy in the White House is going to do, day-to-day. "It's not only the tariff wall; it's kind of a wall of uncertainty that's going up between the two countries," says Julian Karaguesian, a course lecturer in McGill University's economics department. "The immediate effect it's having in the short term is a cooling effect on business investment, which is the dynamic part of the economy." Canada isn't taking the economic punch in the face lying down. Canada's new prime minister, Mark Carney, and the Canadian public have taken a hockey-esque "elbows up" approach to the US. A " Buy Canadian" movement has swept the nation. Canadians are swapping out American-made products and groceries for national ones, guided by forums and apps that help distinguish locally made goods from their Yankee counterparts. Liquor stores have pulled American whiskeys off the shelves. Instead of going to McDonald's, Canadians are hitting up A&W. They're opening up the CBC Gem streaming app to see what's on there instead of Netflix. "Brand damage can last a long time. People won't remember in 10 years why they don't like Nike anymore, but they will still think slightly ill of it," a guy who runs a website called Shop Canadian Stuff tells me. He spoke with me on the condition of anonymity, because his job doesn't know about his nationalist side hustle. Evan Worman, one of the moderators of a Buy Canadian subreddit, tells me that Canadians redirecting their purchasing power is a loss for the US because it's opening people's eyes to the quality of non-American stuff. "People are going to find a lot of the products that are getting imported from Europe have better safety standards, have higher quality control than the US, and it doesn't come with all the hang-ups and baggage of buying from somebody who wants to invade you," he says. Worman is originally from Alaska and has lived in Canada for a decade. When people don't realize he's not Canadian, he doesn't correct them. "People are genuinely very angry at us right now," he says. The attacks are also fostering a willingness to reshape the domestic Canadian economy: Local governments are getting rid of internal trade barriers that have prevented goods from flowing between provinces. "We've had, for decades, stupid, unnecessary rules between Canadian provinces," says Dan Kelly, the president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. "There has been a resurgence of that among our members that are now saying, 'Well, wait a minute, if the US market is uncertain, then I'll send my goods to Ontario rather than to New York.'" The federal government says knocking down interprovincial trade restrictions could boost Canada's economy by $200 billion annually. Karaguesian believes that may be an overstatement, but that and the domestic focus are emblematic of a bigger shift. "The people that are running the United States are saying we don't really have any allies right now — we have adversaries, and we have countries we can tell what to do," making the emphasis on a more unified Canadian economy all the more important, he says. Also on the shorter-term front, many Canadian businesses that hadn't yet bothered to get compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement because previous tariff levels were so negligible are getting their ducks in a row. Holmes, from the Chamber of Commerce, says that pre-Trump, only about half of the products crossing the border were USMCA compliant, because companies hadn't bothered to do the paperwork, but over the past four months, that's gotten to about two-thirds. He estimates that 90% of Canadian products should be compliant overall but notes that "it's just the work of getting it done." Canadian companies aren't rushing to move their operations to the US — which seems to be, in large part, Trump's goal in all of this — but they are adapting. "They're diversifying their sales, and they're diversifying their suppliers," says Patrick Gill, the vice president of the Business Data Lab at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. "And so they're looking to other international markets where Canada has established free trade agreements." The United States' attitudes have sent Canada seeking improved trade agreements and relations elsewhere, including Europe, Asia, and the Global South. In an attempt to wean itself off the US, Canada is looking to expand where it sources from and where it sells. But just how far to go is a difficult calculation. "Some people say that Canada should take the easy win, stay linked to the US, and just ride it out. And there's other people who say that the United States is not a reliable trading partner anymore, and that Canada should strengthen its relationships with other countries. But developing those other relationships is not easy," says Morrow, from the University of Toronto. Canada has a strong skepticism of the US even during the best of times. Canada may be at its breaking point. Canadian political leaders and nationals feel like the US will never be satisfied, no matter how much ground they give. They find the 51st state jokes really offensive. And as much as the US-Canada relationship is extra strained right now, Canadians have long been skeptical of their larger neighbors. The US-Canada free trade agreement that predated NAFTA in the late 1980s was unpopular in Canada. Post-9/11, Canada resisted pressure from the US to join the Iraq invasion and chafed at President George W. Bush's "you're with us or against us" mentality. Some Canadian policymakers felt slighted by the Obama administration's attempts at pushing "Buy American" provisions and by the US-focused investments in the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act. The US and Canada have long grumbled over dairy and lumber. "Canada has a strong skepticism of the US even during the best of times," Morrow says, citing a quote from former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (Justin's father), who said living next to the US was like "sleeping with an elephant — no matter how friendly or even-tempered is the beast, if one can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt." "The United States, for its entire history, has been a protectionist country except the time from the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 to the 9/11 attacks," Karaguesian says. "The United States was the biggest defender of free trade at the turn of the century because they were winning at that game." Trump says the US has "all the cards" in trade relations with Canada. The US certainly has more cards, but Canada isn't playing with an empty hand. The country has felt emboldened to strengthen trade relations with other partners, to revive its own manufacturing base, and to separate itself economically, culturally, and otherwise from the US. Kelly, from CFIB, compares Canada's retaliatory tariffs to economic chemotherapy — "you take the poison in order to try to fight the larger battle" — and adds that it says something that the country is so willing to dig in. "There is fairly significant resolve among Canadian businesses to press back," he says. To be sure, Trump's trade war is doing real damage to Canada — and, it should be said, to the US. Continuing the tit-for-tat won't mean mutually assured destruction for the neighboring countries, but it is one that will harm both, even if to different degrees. Canada's 40 million population can't replace the US's 340 million in terms of a consumer market. It will continue to depend on the US and, increasingly, others for commerce and trade. And the idea of a complete decoupling is quite unfathomable, unless Americans want to spend a ton more on energy and the entire North American auto sector is overhauled. At the moment, Canadians are fired up and holding their own. They don't appear to be poised to back down anytime soon — or to forget what's happening now. "Our elites need to wake up to the full nightmare of what Donald Trump's administration means in terms of trade," Karaguesian says. Much of the Canadian population already has — and years down the line, it could very well be to their country's benefit.
Egypt Independent
4 days ago
- Business
- Egypt Independent
How Trump 2.0 is undoing Trump 1.0
A version of this story appeared in CNN's What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. CNN — The 47th president is in many ways a different man than the 45th president, even though they are both Donald J. Trump. He's unafraid to swear in public or on social media and he's more emboldened, willing to directly challenge the Constitution and the courts and capable of demanding more loyalty from Republicans. But Trump 2.0 is also in direct competition with his former self in several important ways, starting with the fact that he can't seem to remember appointing people he now loathes. Opposing his own appointees Trump's aides are looking at ways to oust Jay Powell, the Fed chairman Trump nominated to the role during his first term. Trump told House Republicans he had drafted a letter to take the unprecedented step of firing the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Markets beware. At the White House Wednesday, Trump seemed to forget that he had nominated Powell. 'I was surprised he was appointed,' Trump said. 'I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him, but they did.' Biden renominated Powell. Either Trump can't remember or he is willing himself to forget his role in the process. If Trump ultimately tests the Fed's independence and tries to fire Powell, he'll point to a building renovation that got underway during Trump's own first term. Before Trump took office for the second time, the FBI director appointed during his first term, Christopher Wray, quit early rather than wait to be fired. On the Supreme Court, CNN has reported on Trump's gripes behind closed doors about his nominee Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in particular. Undoing his own trade deal When Trump today threatens burdensome tariffs on Canada and Mexico, who he accuses of 'taking advantage' of previous US presidents, he's also talking about his prior self. Trump's first-term administration negotiated the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement — a reboot of NAFTA. Back then, it was hailed as the major accomplishment of his trade policy. Evolutions on crypto and social media He has also evolved on issues including bitcoin and cryptocurrency, although that could have something to do with his family's business interests. And Trump used to support banning TikTok in the US, but now, after making inroads with young men in the last election, he very much wants a US-based company to step up and buy the platform. 'He's undoing himself with a vengeance,' the CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali told me. The relatively moderate mainstream policy hands who marked the first Trump term are on the outs. Outsiders and MAGA figureheads are in. 'Donald Trump clearly is angry about what his advisers forced him to do in the first term,' Naftali said, pointing specifically to trade policy. 'His approach to Canada and Mexico is inexplicable given his first term, unless you realize that he wasn't happy with what he ended up doing in the first term,' he said. Vaccines are another Trump 2.0 correction Naftali said Trump deserves credit for Operation Warp Speed, the effort to quickly develop a Covid-19 vaccine at a time when the country was largely shut down by the pandemic. But rather than build on that legacy, Trump selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his Health and Human Services director, elevating a vaccine skeptic to a top policy role. Kennedy fired all the members of a CDC vaccine advisory panel and brought in vaccine skeptics to review the vaccine schedule. I put the idea of Trump 2.0 correcting Trump 1.0 to a number of CNN reporters and anchors who pay close attention to foreign affairs, the economy and the environment. On world affairs, he's more erratic and is taking less advice CNN's Jim Sciutto, who wrote a book, The Madman Theory, about Trump's first-term foreign policy, notes that Trump is more aggressive this time, and appears to be more inclined to listen to his own gut. SCIUTTO: In his second term, President Trump is proving less likely to be deterred by advisers or advice against his more aggressive moves in international affairs. And, so for instance, while (former White House Chief of Staff) Gen. John Kelly and (former national security adviser) John Bolton were able to counsel him away from summarily withdrawing from NATO in 2018, many — including those who served in his first administration — fear his current advisers won't stand in the way. From foreign officials, the concern I hear most often is one of uncertainty. From tariffs to military support for Ukraine, they express doubts that what the president says today will hold tomorrow. Trade deals become fleeting agreements subject to where the financial markets are on any given day or how the White House reads domestic politics. And support for Ukraine — which European officials see as central to the security of the whole continent — rises and falls based on Trump's current interpretation of where Putin stands on peace talks. Trump has proven his willingness to make hard decisions his predecessors avoided — the US strikes on Iran stand out. What observers at home and abroad are waiting for is a consistent and predictable worldview. On trade, he's contradicting himself Allison Morrow, who writes the Nightcap newsletter for CNN Business, agrees there's a difference to this president, but he remains the same in one very important way. MORROW: I agree with Tim Naftali, though I wonder how conscious Trump is of his attempts to undo USMCA, which itself was just a reshuffling of NAFTA. The Trump 2.0 tariff strategy, such as it is, doesn't make any sense in practice. If you really want to use tariffs to bring back US manufacturing, you can't be cutting deals, because then there's no incentive for companies to invest in domestic production. We've written about the contradictions at the heart of his tariff ideology dozens of times at this point, and there's just no response from the White House about how they think they can make tariffs do everything they claim, all at once. I think the thing that jumps out at me between Trump 1.0 and 2.0 is what hasn't changed. Fundamentally, I think Trump wants to avoid accountability. And that's why he has sort of slow-walked the tariffs into the market's collective consciousness, and backed off when the bond markets shuddered. He's testing to see what he can get away with without causing a financial or economic catastrophe. Cutting Medicaid rather than repealing Obamacare Trump and his aides also clearly learned from his first term. Instead of trying repeatedly to repeal Obamacare, they cut future spending from Medicaid, which will have a similar effect by pushing millions of lower-income Americans off their health insurance in the years to come. Turning words into actions CNN's Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter noted that in this term, Trump is acting more forcefully against news outlets. STELTER: Instead of merely tweeting insults at independent media outlets, he is taking concrete actions to penalize those outlets, while at the same time promoting and empowering MAGA commentators. Take the media story in the news right now: the imminent defunding of PBS and NPR. In Trump's first term, he harshly criticized public media, but those were just words, not actions. His administration also proposed annual budgets that would have zeroed out the funding, but didn't successfully pressure Congress to follow through. In Trump's second term, he seemingly knows which buttons to press. He (or, probably more accurately, his aides) targeted the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in several different ways and sold Republican lawmakers on a DOGE-branded rescission that passed both the House and Senate. This is what four years of prep looks like CNN's Senior White House Correspondent Kristen Holmes isn't sure Trump is undoing his first term as much as he is better prepared this time. HOLMES: Trump and his allies had four years to prepare for him to be president again. His allies used that time to create a framework for a second term agenda, as well as brainstorm potential roadblocks and work-arounds to those roadblocks, to ensure that they could start enacting his agenda on Day 1. The first time around, even members of Trump's own campaign were surprised he won. They had almost no real transition and Trump had to rely on Washington Republicans, many of whom did not have the same ideas as him, to help fill out the cabinet and guide him. And while he knew what he wanted to do, he had no real understanding of how to get it done. Now, he is working in unison with almost every inch of his administration to get what he wants done — and it's working. Holmes' point carries over to immigration, Trump's signature issue. He is more effectively carrying through with mass deportations than he did in his first term. With a more pliant Congress, he has money for his border wall, the go-ahead to turn ICE into the nation's largest and best-funded police force, and the help of Republican governors to create new detention centers to hold undocumented immigrants — not just violent criminals — he wants to deport. When he leaves office, the country will look a lot different after his second term than it did after his first.
Telegraph
5 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Telegraph style book: Nn
N Nafta: North American Free Trade Agreement. Not NAFTA Nasa: Never NASA national curriculum: Lower case National Farmers' Union National Insurance (NI) National Lottery National Trust: Thereafter the trust nativity: For the birth of Jesus Nato (never NATO) NatWest 'Ndrangheta nearby: In all uses Neil, Andrew nerve-racking net zero: Lower case Netanyahu, Benjamin Network Rail: Owns and operates all Britain's rail infrastructure nevertheless Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle-under-Lyme New Year's Eve/Day, New Year: But 'in the new year' Newspaper Publishers Association: No apostrophe Nicholson, Jack Nineteen Eighty-Four: The novel by George Orwell. Not 1984 nitrobenzene No 10 Downing Street, No 10 No 1: As in 'the Beatles hold the record for No 1s', should be written out as number ones nonetheless no one numskull
