Front Burner - What could Trump’s win mean for Canada?

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

The election of a new U.S. president reverberates around the world, but none of America's partners are as intertwined economically, politically and culturally as Canada. With respect to trade, the future of NATO, immigration, and the culture wars, both Canada and the United States are inextricably linked. Today, CBC Washington correspondent Alex Panetta and CBC senior business reporter Peter Armstrong on the longstanding political relationship between Canada and the U.S., and what a second Trump presidency is likely to mean for the country's closest ally, Canada.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. The election of a new U.S. president reverberates across every corner of the world. But none of America's partners are as intertwined economically and culturally as Canada and the United States. Canada looks forward to working in close partnership

with our American friends and neighbours. I also want to say I know that a lot of Canadians are anxious and I want to say with utter sincerity and conviction to Canadians that Canada will be absolutely fine. Millions of Canadians tuned into this American election and its aftermath for the spectacle of it, of course. But also to understand how a second term of Donald Trump could stand to impact them here in Canada. Trump policies on stuff like trade, immigration and military spending, military alliances,

will shape this country in the years ahead. To get a better sense of how the election of the 47th American president may stand to impact you, I'm joined today by my colleague Alex Panetta in Washington and Peter Armstrong here in studio, senior business reporter. Alex, Peter, thank you so much for being here today.

Good to be here. How do you both? It is great to have you. Let us talk about what a second Trump administration could mean for Canadians. And I want to do the economy first because this could have a real material impact on people's day-to-day lives. And Peter, I will keep you hostage here with me through this. Then I know you have to go. And then we're going to continue on with Alex to dig more into the political stuff. But Peter, we have, of course, heard Donald Trump and people around him rail against free trade, which they argue essentially takes away American jobs, making stuff because that stuff is made elsewhere and then shipped in. And so one way to address this is by slapping tariffs on those imported goods.

And we dealt with a Trump administration that was very much about this in 2016. And how did it affect Canadians last time around? It is remarkable when you think about it, Jamie, how much time dulls the memory. Yes. You think back to those early days of the first Trump presidency. They were bananas.

Yeah, it's like we were talking about aluminum, right? Yeah. Well, it grew to aluminum. It started, part of the problem and part of the really interesting change in dynamic between this time and that time is everything was a surprise. Nothing had any form to it. Nobody had any idea if Donald Trump, A, knew what he was talking about. B, was being serious.

C, would follow through on any of this or if it was just a threat. This time we do know all of that so going back to 2016 everybody there was a sort of universal agreement heading into that among the political class for lack of a better word that nafta was a net good everything was you don't want to blow up nafta and then in comes trump saying nafta has been a disaster we've got to get rid of this and it was just ripples of fear that tore through the economy on both sides of the border. All of a sudden there's tariffs and there's countermeasures, retaliatory tariffs. It was absolute chaos.

And a lot of the chaos was because we didn't have a clear sense of what was true, what was real, and what was used as a threat. And as it turns out, it was this weird hodgepodge of all of it all at the same time. And Alex, let me bring you in here. You covered these crazy NAFTA negotiations last time around. And just give us a little bit of a reminder here of what actually ended up happening. Yeah. So there's this view in hindsight that the new NAFTA, USMCA, most people in the United States call it, was a bit of a nothing burger, that it was not a drastic or dramatic departure from what existed before. But actually, I take a slightly different view. I think there were some materially

significant differences in this new agreement. And I think there are two major changes and both of them point to the same U.S. objective. Change number one, automobile parts. I just noticed behind me John Deere tractors. I know a lot about John Deere. I love the company. But as you know, they've announced a few days ago that they're going to move a lot of their manufacturing business to Mexico. I'm just notifying John Deere right now. If you do that, we're putting a 200% tariff on everything that you want to sell into the United States. And the rules have been rewritten to sort of make it slightly less advantageous for a car manufacturer to build a plant in Mexico. It's not completely disadvantageous, but there are incentives there to steer manufacturing to higher wage jurisdictions, particularly the United States, with the way the rules have been written. Number two, there is permanent uncertainty embedded in the new agreement in different forms.

Form number one, they got rid of the investor state dispute settlement mechanism with Canada. Second thing that they did is they made it necessary to renegotiate the new agreement every decade or so. So you don't really know whether it's going to exist forever. What's the goal of that? To steer manufacturing back to the United States. So, you know, businesses might be worried about building a plant in Canada or Mexico because they don't know if NAFTA will be there or USMCA will be there forever. So that's what we have. Generally, you know, an agreement that's been tweaked from what existed before, not a dramatic change, but just a couple of changes aimed at advantaging the United States manufacturing sector.

It is worth noting that, you know, for all of the hand-wringing and angst that went into what the new NAFTA, USMCA, CUSMA was going to look like, since 2019, when it was re-signed, trade between Canada, US and Mexico is up $1.5 trillion Canadian, nearly 30% higher than 2019 levels. So like it, in a lot of ways, it, it did the things that Alex raises the American administration wanted it to do, but it has from a trade perspective, largely been a success through negotiation. And so let me just put a point on that, like from an economic perspective, how much did the last Trump administration affect people's lives here when we talk about trade? They did. And a lot of it was this, right? That stat I just gave that we've seen a massive increase in trade. The trade between those three countries had been relatively flat for the five years leading up to the renegotiation. Now we've seen this, this spike in trade as the rest of the world starts to kind of

de-globalize back then it was all of that uncertainty, right? I remember I was doing the business show at the time I was talking to businesses every single night who were talking about how hard it was to do business, how unsure they were about whether the market was going to be open to them, what that meant. And, you know, not to get too deep in the weeds on this, but remember that small and medium-sized businesses make up like 70% of private sector employment in Canada. These are the lifeblood of the Canadian economy and 75% of Canadian exports go to the United States. So we really count on that market, not just existing, but being kind of easy and without barrier. And there was a ton of barrier and that, that was, was right up in the face of every small, medium, even large business

owner that we spoke with throughout that period. Where we got to, I think most would say, oh yeah, it worked out pretty good. But in those years of uncertainty and trade war and aggressive, we don't know what's going to happen. It was really tough on people. So then why do I hear people concerned about what could happen now? Seems like this turned out okay for us. No? Well, so let's compare 2016 to 2024 because they are different. Back then we didn't know what was real. Now we do know. It's not bluster. He does mean it. This time he's not just going after

specific provisions within the new North American Free Trade Agreement, he's talking about a 10% to as high as 20% tariff on all goods coming into the United States from all places. That is a dramatic uptick in what we're talking about in terms of protectionism. The higher the tariff, the more likely it is that the company will come into the United States and build a factory in the United States so it doesn't have to pay the tariff. That will take many, many, as you know, that will take many years. In fact, I'll tell you, you know, there's another theory is that the tariff, you make it so high, so horrible, so obnoxious that they'll come right away. But really, so there's two ways of looking at a tariff. You can do it as a money-making instrument, or you can do it as something to get the companies.

Now, if you want the companies to come in, the tariff has to be a lot higher than 10%. Those tariffs are much higher when we talk about China. The 10% to 20% is like for Canada, for Mexico, for Europe, to try to get goods into the United States. And it's across the board. So, for example, yesterday, I was's across the board. So for example, yesterday I was speaking with the grain growers association who mostly made it through the,

the first term of, of president Trump without much trouble. They've had problems with their export market to China, but for the most part, their biggest market has been the United States. And that's gone swimmingly. Now, all of a sudden, if we're talking about a 10% increase in tariff for them, that's a huge deal. They do $9.5 billion of business in the United States every year. That's a lot of money. It's a lot of business and there's a lot of concern. So you all of a sudden have all of these new industries that are facing these new potential

obstacles about how to get their product to their biggest market. And just take this down the line for me, 10 to 20% tariff on all imports to the United States. So everything that we export to the United States, how does that affect me? Well, in a couple of ways. One, when trade sort of tightens up, and we've seen this over the last number of years, that we are going through a period of deglobalization where, you know, even just before the Trump presidency, everybody was talking about expanding trade and opening up new free trade deals. And that if we did better open free trade with China, that China would become more like

us. None of that panned out. And we're starting to see those trade deals crumble a little bit, not all the way and not give way, but start to, to er crumble a little bit, not all the way and not give way, but start to, to erode a little bit. And, and, and shipping lanes have been a disaster since COVID, but also because of, you know, uh, accidents and climate change and, and all of these other things are going on. And that does make the stuff you buy more expensive when, when shipping rates go up due to uncertainty, that makes things more expensive for you. When we talk about the Americans imposing tariffs on Canadian products, there's always going to be retaliatory measures.

The Canadian counter tariffs are also taking effect. $16.6 billion worth. We know there's a 25% tariff on steel, on U.S. steel, 10% on aluminum, and also 10% on some consumer goods. So what kind of goods are we talking about here? There's a huge long list of consumer goods including pizza, including chocolate, and including bourbon and whiskey. If it seems a little bit random there's quite a lot on that list of consumer goods. It's not. The reason that they're targeting these specific

products is to exert maximum political pressure on the Trump administration. I have heard economists talk about how this tariff plan could create a global recession and just explain that to me. it could. And what we've seen over the last, what, five years is how all of these little exogenous shocks and sometimes big exogenous shocks can just sort of nudge the economy in a direction that it's already headed. The Canadian economy is already really struggling, stuck right around 0%. The American economy is one of the only economies in the developed world that's really sort of booming right now. Everybody's struggling with growth. And if you add barriers to where you can grow your economy and you're putting up obstacles for how trade can flow more freely, you're going to slow things down a little bit further. And we're right at that point, Jamie, where it's so easy. It doesn't take much to nudge where we are as a global economy from kind of middling,

you know, stuck in the mud, but not all the way into a recession. It doesn't take much to nudge that into something darker and deeper. And, and again, with the uncertainty, if you don't know, it's really hard to plan. And if you can't plan, you're not going to invest. And if you're not going to invest, that's not going to help grow the economy. It can become this self-fulfilling cycle that can be really dangerous and really devastating. Alex, I know you've spoken to a lot of Canadian officials about how they're preparing here. Tell me a bit about what they're saying to you.

How are they feeling post-Tuesday? How are they feeling? Yeah, so I'll tell you one thing. Peter mentions the uncertainty. I mean, I would argue that that's part of the objective. It's the feature, not the bug, of Trump's trade policy. And all you've got to do is look at the writings of his trade czar, Robert Lighthizer, in his own book, talking about this global tariff plan, how he wants these tariffs to go up every single year until the United States is importing fewer products. So that could have a devastating effect on the Canadian economy. And there's this wide range of estimates on what it means. how these tariffs are designed. It could be anything from one estimate I saw from a think tank in Washington, a 0.4% hit to Canada's economy. I mean, that would hurt, but it's not

the end of the world. But I've seen that go all the way up to 5%. We're getting into depression territory, right? And that depends on how these tariffs are designed, which brings me back to the Canadians. Over the last several months, Canadian officials have tried very hard to find out what Trump has in mind. And they've spoken with a bunch of his former officials at the U.S. Trade Representative's office, to people at the U.S. Treasury Department under Trump, and people who are probably going to go back into government now that he's been reelected. And they've been looking for some clarity, for some certainty on what it would mean. Would Canada get an exemption to these

tariff policies? And what I'm told is they have not been given the slightest bit of reassurance at all. And what I suspect is going to happen is Trump's going to announce tariffs on everybody and everything. I mean, this is to me the leading scenario. He announces tariffs on everybody and everything. They don't take effect immediately because it doesn't necessarily make sense that you'd put tariffs on, I don't know know like watermelons from central america in january right like there's there's no strategic incentive for the united states to drive up the price of watermelons in january right nor nor would i see a republican like trump imposing a tariff on canada's number one export to the united states oil basically a carbon tax right i don't i just i don't i can't imagine that

but so then what would happen then is he would use the threat of tariffs, basically would be like a set of brass knuckles he'd have on constantly to negotiate the browbeat countries, including Canada, into making certain changes in the way we trade. And the United States has a laundry list of asks of Canada, and this would give them some leverage. So that's what I suspect could happen. But the details really matter, including how Canada retaliates. I mean, I'm told the, the sort of the predominant thinking, the prevailing thinking is you have to retaliate because if you don't, you're walking around with basically a kick me sign permanently affixed to your face for the rest of your life. But of course, you know, any economist would tell you that just, it'll make

things worse. You know, you're getting into a fight with the, the, the biggest kid in the schoolyard, you know, you're better off just avoiding that and you don't know what he's gonna do exactly every time i hear stories like this i keep going back to that john mulaney comedy stand-up uh bit he does where he's like there's a horse it's loose in the hospital you don't know what the horse is gonna do next this guy being the president it's like there's a horse loose in a hospital. I think eventually everything's going to be okay, but I have no idea what's going to happen next. And then for a second, it seemed like maybe we could survive the horse. And then 5,000 miles away, a hippo was like, I have a nuclear bomb. Anyways, I digress.

So, yeah, and the point being, when I say that there are a bunch of unknowns and we don't know whether this would hit us with a half-point contraction to our economy up to a five-point contraction, it depends on how vast the tariffs are, how quickly they go into effect, whether they touch everybody and everything,

and whether we retaliate and how they respond to our retaliation. So, a lot of unknowns. Okay, well, you guys are kind of freaking me out now, but Peter, let me, let me do another one with you. On Tuesday, very early in the morning, Keith Vogue, who I know you know, talked to me about a worry that a lot of people have that a Trump administration will work to weaken the U.S. dollar and that this could be a real problem for Canada and just explain literally what all of that, what all of that means to me. I, I, I, let me go back to the, the, the issue when we're trying to figure out what did Trump really want around tariffs?

And, and I used to always say to people, I don't think Donald Trump understands how tariffs work. And I know that sounds crazy, but he talks about them in ways that make you think he doesn't. And I raised that with Flavio Volpe, who you've spoken with before from the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association. And he said, it doesn't matter. I'm getting to your point on currency. It all ties back, I promise. We're going to loop back. His point on tariffs was, I don't think he got it on who pays the tariff, but I don't think he cared. He knew that by making the threat, we'd come to the table with some concessions. And that was the important piece.

And I think on currencies, there's a similar sort of, uh, philosophical thinking that in, in a lot of, in Trump's mind, at least it feels like currency is used as a proxy for the economy and something's got to win and something's got to lose. And if the American dollar is better than the Canadian dollar, it means the Canadian, the American economy is better than the Canadian economy and bully to you. And aren't we better? And same thing with the Euro and the pound and the peso and everything else that misses a ton of nuance.

And it means that American exporters, Canadians might not buy as much of their stuff because all of a sudden it's too expensive and that would be bad for American businesses, but it loses the nuance on that. And I come back to what Flavio said about tariffs. He doesn't care. It doesn't matter that he doesn't see that nuance. He sees it as a bargaining chip. He sees it as a point that he can use leverage to try to force something.

And we come back to what Alex has been saying of, they have this whole laundry list of things they want to get done. And in talking with the industry associations and the businesses and all the people that I've been talking to in the lead up to this election and, and in the wake of it, the question about that laundry list becomes really important. They're, they're saying they know the Americans have a laundry list of things they got to get done. So what is the Canadian response? What is our laundry list? What is our laundry list of things that we're willing to make some concessions on? And what are the things we're going to ask for in return? That's the stuff that's got to become really clear and will all of a sudden get very pointed and focused. All right, Alex, we are going to take

a break and then I want to hit some more political stuff with you. Peter, I know you have to go. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It's always great to talk to you. Nice to talk to you, Alex. It is always a pleasure to have you explain the economy to me. Thank you. Thank you. You bet. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years.

I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Okay, we are back. We are back with Alex Panetta. And Alex, I want to talk to you about some other issues here. In addition

to the economy, Donald Trump's flagship issue was really illegal immigration. Trump has committed to the most restrictive deportation program in American history on day one of his administration. And talk to me a bit about how that actually could impact Canada. Well, he's talking about deporting more than 10 million people, which, I mean, I don't know how that would work. I don't know if it's feasible. I don't know what it would do to the U.S. economy. Maybe he'll do something slightly different,

such as be so harsh and so brutal with a small number of migrants, like he was in his first term, separating families, that it dissuades more migration. But if he actually embarks on a mass deportation program, just look at the numbers, the population size. I mean, Canada's immigration debate was inflamed over a few tens of thousands of people at Roxham Road. Despite signs at Roxham Road warning it's illegal to cross for years, people did it anyway because of a loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement,

which prevents people from claiming asylum in Canada at regular crossings if they landed in the U.S. first. I mean, that's nothing. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what Trump is talking about doing. You know, we were bringing in a couple hundred thousand people in Canada and that appeared to be too much for our infrastructure and housing pool to handle. Now, imagine if just a small fraction of 10 million people looks north and says, well, I'm going to apply for asylum in Canada before getting kicked out. Hedge towards Roxham Road. That could place unimaginable strain, and not only on our infrastructure, but our politics. Yeah. And we're talking about Roxham roads. So this is a border share between Quebec and the United States. And just talk to me a little bit more about what could happen with our

politics. So, you know, I grew up in Quebec, so I kind of tend to see things through that prism sometimes. And I do believe that Donald Trump could become a player in our own national unity debates. You have a parti québécois government in Quebec that is apparently a government in waiting. It's leading the polls. It's talking about maybe holding another independence referendum. And it's talking a lot about migration, about using the need to control Quebec's own borders and wrest that power away from Ottawa as a reason for Quebec independence. You take that, you take this laundry list of issues Trump is going to ask for in exchange for relieving tariffs. Dairy is going to be one of them. And I could just see the Parti Québécois saying, you're selling us out. You're selling

out rural Quebec in exchange for sparing Ontario's car factories of these tariffs. This could become a real fault line in Canada, the stuff that we have to do with respect to Trump. So that's something to keep an eye on. Let's talk about our national security a little bit. Donald Trump has historically been pretty forthcoming about his attitude toward NATO, this belief that the U.S. is carrying too much of the financial burden and that he may want to reduce that load. Do you think there's a world in which he ends up really disinvesting from NATO in a real way or leaving NATO altogether?

And what might that mean for Canada? Yes, I don't necessarily see him reducing U.S. military spending. What I see is him doing a version with defense on what I alluded to earlier when it comes to trade, which is to intentionally create uncertainty, to do the things that he's already doing, which is to say, well, I might not defend you if you get invaded. I might not help you if you get into trouble with another country, if you're not spending on your own defense. And that's obviously an issue when it comes to Canada. I talked to somebody who's rumored to be in the mix for Trump's potential next that needs to be refurbished. Well, maybe we're going to need to change the nature of our, of our, of our incentives or threats, including maybe threatening tariffs or threatening to kick you out of international meetings like the G7 or something like that, just to get your

attention so that you spend more on defense more quickly. Okay. He is inheriting the most complicated geopolitical situation that we have seen in decades. There are wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. He said he's going to end them, Trump. I want to ask you about Ukraine specifically. and try to force a negotiated settlement with Russia. There is a lot of criticism of what people believe is way too close and frankly an admiration of Putin from Trump. Canada has a very large Ukrainian population and obviously our own positions on the war. And how tricky could this get? I think you're going to see a mad scramble over the next couple of months

to get Ukraine whatever weapons and funding, not only in the United States but internationally, that people can transfer over to at least give it some semblance of leverage over the next few months as hopefully this war comes to a negotiated close. But it's going to be tough. Ukraine has lost an important ally in the United States. I don't think Trump will completely throw it to the dogs, but I don't see him fighting very hard to get an equitable settlement out of this conflict. So yes, all the stress we might be feeling in Canada over the next few months with respect to the economy

and migration and defense, it's not even a drop in the bucket of what Ukraine must be going through right now. Let's end this conversation by talking about how what happened Tuesday night might apply to our own political situation here. What we might be able to glean from it, I guess. So much of this election came down to voters rejecting an incumbent government that they were frustrated and angry with. Incumbents in every one of 10 major countries that held national elections this year were disavowed in some way by voters. I'm thinking of Macron in France, Sunak in the UK, Japan's liberal Democrats, in addition to others. And in some ways, I feel like this could be read as an extremely bad omen for trudeau's liberals you could mount that argument and what do what do you think about that i think you're absolutely

right i mean you know uh today i was actually going and checking out google trends and i found that there was this surge in searches uh on election night for an old quote from the 1992 US election, it's the economy stupid. And there's a reason there was a surge in searches because maybe it is the economy stupid. And we are living in an era of repudiation of incumbents, which is known to happen in times of inflation. Even though it's getting better, things have improved. Inflation's down, interest rates are going down, but clearly that has not persuaded a large number of Americans that they were not necessarily better off under the current administration, and that's that. And yet, though, you hear a lot of political minds here saying that the Trudeau government

should call an election now, that this is like their window. And what is that argument? Do you think it's a good one? Yes. The argument is that the liberals are in severe trouble and what they face is not, you know, unicorns and rainbows or defeat. What they face is either a defeat on the scale of what happened to John Turner in 1984 or what happened to Michael Ignatieff in 2011, which is a potential extinction level event for the party versus, you know, you lose a normal election like Paul Martin did in 2006. And, and, um, and the argument goes that they maximize their chances of having that least

painful outcome or maybe even winning, who knows, uh, if they create the most favorable possible ballot box question. So what favorable possible ballot box question. So what does that ballot box question look like? Maybe it looks like Justin Trudeau crossing the road or wherever he lives nowadays, I haven't been in Ottawa for a while, to go see the governor general and say, I'm dissolving parliament and I'm asking Canadians for a mandate to negotiate with Donald Trump. And so what does that do? Well, it connects the election to this

issue that you said, he got pretty high marks from Canadians on. It also makes Donald Trump a figure in Canada's election. And the name of a game in an election is to unify your side and divide the opposition. And it just so happens that Donald Trump is an issue that divides conservatives in Canada, right? There are a lot of conservatives who hate him in Canada and a lot who love him and they feel passionately. And it splits that sort of conservative party versus People's Party of Canada, Fisher. And, you know, and if you're Trudeau,

you got to think maybe it's kind of tempting over the next few weeks before Trump is president, because you don't want to necessarily be doing this when he actually has the levers of power, but in the sort of the silly season before he takes office and say, well, I'm going to sort of try to force an election on this issue that gives me at least a fighting chance. Alex, thank you.

Such a pleasure, as always, to have you. We'll talk to you soon. Great to be here. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Front Burner was produced this week by Joytha Sengupta, Matt Omha, Matt Mews, and Ali Janes.

Sound design was by Mackenzie Cameron and Marco Luciano. Music is by Joseph Chabison. Our senior producer is Elaine Chao. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos. I'm Jamie Poisson. I'm very pleased that it's the end of the week. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.