Your World Tonight - Are tariffs inevitable? Inflation up, Trump vs the Epstein files, and more

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

Prime Minister Mark Carney says there’s no evidence the U.S. will back down on imposing tariffs. He points to deals U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed with other countries. Carney met with his cabinet today, to discuss a plan of action.And: That tariff uncertainty may be nudging up Canada’s inflation rate. Statistics Canada says it affected clothing prices, as inflation rose to 1.9 per cent in June.Also: Trump is under pressure from his own supporters to release files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump has recently been refusing – even insisting it was a waste of time. But today – he’s hinting he’s changed his mind – again.Plus: Skepticism for Trump’s Russia plan, Canadian camp emergency plans, ostrich farm in court, and more.

I'm Joshua Jackson, and I'm returning for the Audible original series, Oracle, Season 3, Murder at the Grandview. Six forty-somethings took a boat out a few days ago. One of them was found dead. The hotel, the island, something wasn't right about it. Psychic agent Nate Russo is back on the case, and you know when Nate's killer instincts are required, anything's possible.

This world's gonna eat you alive. Listen to Oracle Season 3, Murder at the Grandview, now on Audible. This is a CBC Podcast. The commercial landscape globally has changed. It's changed in a fundamental manner, and we will continue to focus on what we can most control, The commercial landscape globally has changed. It's changed in a fundamental manner. And we will continue to focus on what we can most control,

which is building a strong Canadian economy. Prime Minister Mark Carney trying to stay focused on this country as US President Donald Trump reshapes the economic world around it. With the clock ticking on the latest threat, and amid all the changes to deals and deadlines, the Prime Minister is now admitting some tariffs may be here to stay. Welcome to Your World Tonight. I'm Stephanie Scanderis.

It's Tuesday, July 15th, just before 6pm Eastern. Also on the podcast. A basic like white tank top has gone up a lot like before it could be 15 bucks and now it's like 30 or 40 dollars. Inflation, wearing on Canadian shoppers. From clothing to cars, the price of some goods is ticking up as the economy feels the impact of U.S. tariffs. All as the Bank of Canada watches closely with a decision on interest rates

coming later this month. As Canadian officials keep trying to strike a trade deal with the United States for the first time, Prime Minister Mark Carney is acknowledging that regardless of the outcome, Canadians may have to live with some form of U.S. tariffs. It comes as Carney met with his cabinet today in response to Donald Trump's threat of a 35 percent tariff and a deadline set for the end of the month. Evan Dyer has the latest from Ottawa. We need to recognize that the commercial landscape globally has changed. Prime Minister Mark Carney today seemed to suggest that the goal of tariff-free trade

with the US might not be attainable with Donald Trump in office, saying there isn't much evidence at this point of agreements, understandings or negotiations with the Americans for any country, any jurisdiction, to have a tariff-free agreement. Indeed, the deals Trump has reached with other countries all include baseline tariffs supplied across the board. Even Britain, which has a trade deficit with the United States, was forced to accept a baseline 10% tariff on its goods as condition of a trade deal. Catherine Cobb then heads the Canadian Steel Producers Association. Unfortunately I think he's being realistic. I don't, I would agree we're not seeing a lot of evidence of, at this moment in time,

of the U.S. president's willingness to proceed without tariffs on anybody. Canadian officials like industry minister Melanie Jolie weren't saying much about the talks. I've said it many times, we won't negotiate in public. But the Conservatives Erin O'Toole seemed to accept that baseline tariffs might be unavoidable. We want to get a deal that has a low as possible general tariff rate and an exemption completely, hopefully for steel, aluminum, auto and energy. O'Toole says Carney shouldn't let himself be rushed into accepting a bad deal or assume that Trump holds all the cards.

I think we do need an urgent resolution, but not at all cost. People forget that Donald Trump is in a race against the inflation clock. You know, there's going to be shortages on the shelves in the fall in the United States as a result of this global tariff war. Many of the people that elected Donald Trump last fall will be paying more. So he needs a deal as much as Canada does. Indeed, inflation figures from the U.S. Labor Department show a higher than expected rate of 2.7% for June.

Some of the biggest increases were in heavily imported items such as toys, clothes, and sporting goods. It appears that long predicted price hikes caused by tariffs are now starting to appear on store shelves across the U.S. Prices on new vehicles are also climbing. In a late night phone call with BBC journalist Gary O'Donoghue, Trump suggested he was ready to make a deal with Canada. We're negotiating with Canada right now and we'll see how that all works out.

I think it's going to work out very well. But while neither side has said much about those negotiations, the Canadian side is clearly lowering expectations. Evan Dyer, CBC News, Ottawa. Those U.S. tariffs are having an effect on the cost of living in Canada. This country's inflation rate crept up last month, with Canadians paying more for cars, furniture and other products as the cost of food and shelter went down. Jamie Strashen has those details.

All along Queen Street in downtown Toronto, it's a fashion lover's paradise. And the price of looking good has gone up. A basic white tank top has gone up a lot. Before it could be 15 bucks because there's no work put into it really. It's like a blank shirt. And now it's like 30 or 40 dollars it's making some think long and hard about a new pair of shoes or a fresh dress for the summer definitely trying to make sure what I'm buying is of good quality it's gonna last a little longer it's a clean simple piece that's gonna

work with me for a year or two or more the price of inflation ticked up to 1.9 percent in June, largely driven by increased costs for things like clothing, footwear and cars. The cost of a new vehicle up 5.2% over last year. All of these sectors and others starting to feel the impact of the on-again-off-again tariff war. So we are currently paying a 25% tariff on everything that we bring in from the United States. Gerald Miller is the president of Lazy Boy Furniture Galleries in Vancouver.

He owns four stores across the province and purchases nearly all of his inventory from the U.S. Miller says he's mostly managed to keep prices the same but says tariffs have changed how people shop. They're leery to spend money so we're not seeing as many customers in the store and you know it's really affecting our sales that way. More than the tariffs is just that uncertainty and people being very cautious about where they're spending their money and how much they're spending. One place where price increases are slowing, the grocery store, where for the first time

in four years prices for fruits and vegetables have gone up, but not at the same rate as previous months. Add all of these numbers up and there are wider implications, especially when it comes to interest rates. BMO Douglas Porter says, They can tolerate pretty much anything between one to 3%, but unfortunately we're right at the very top of that boundary. So they're, they're not going to be really comfortable cutting interest rates when underlying inflation is stuck right at the the high end of their

comfort zone. Porter says as long as inflation holds a cut by the Bank of Canada at the end of July is unlikely. Jamie Strash in CBC News, Toronto. Still ahead on the podcast, few details but plenty of doubt as Ukrainians react to Washington's new strategy to broker a ceasefire with Russia. And just days after saying he'd heard enough about Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump now supports releasing more information about the convicted sex offender. Those stories and more all coming up on Your World Tonight. It's a turning point in Donald Trump's approach to the Russia-Ukraine war.

But as more reaction comes in to a new deadline for the Kremlin and a new weapons deal for NATO, it's still not clear where the US President is heading and there's skepticism on the front lines about how far he's willing to go. Briar Stewart has the latest. In the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, a work crew twists wire and attaches netting to make a canopy over a roadway. In communities near the front line, these structures are being built along some highways in an effort to try and protect vehicles from daily drone attacks.

The last couple months have been tough, says a 29-year-old Ukrainian soldier who only wanted to be identified as Ruslan. He says Donald Trump's announcement about more US weapons for Ukraine is good news, but he's skeptical about the president's threat to impose tariffs if Russia doesn't agree to a ceasefire within 50 days. Maybe after 50 days there will be another 30 days and then another 20, he says. On Monday Trump announced that the US would sell NATO weapons to give to Ukraine but details are scant.

Even the European Union is trying to figure out how it will work. EU foreign policy chief Kaya Kalas. We welcome President Trump's announcement to send more weapons to Ukraine although we would like to see the U.S. to share the burden. Trump says that more Patriot missile defense systems will be headed to Kiev, but it's not clear when or how many. The U.S. president has threatened to impose secondary sanctions on Moscow's trading partners like India and China, which import vast quantities of Russian oil but he won't do that right

away and when asked by reporters why he suggested he could change his mind again I don't think 50 days is very long and it could be sooner than that I don't think Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov says he's trying to work out the motivation for Trump's deadline. Mockingly saying it used to be 24 hours and then it was 100 days. We've all been through this. The only one we haven't been able to get to yet is Russia. While Trump's tougher talk suggests a major pivot, Matthew Seville urges caution.

He's the director of military sciences at the London-based Royal United Services Institute. I think if anyone is sort of leaping to this as evidence, like he's finally seen the light, I think we really need to see what happens. But without the detail, it's hard to know if it radically changes anything. He says if Trump does give Russia 50 days,

Vladimir Putin will surely use 49 of them to keep attacking Ukrainian cities. Briar Stewart, CBC News, London. Trump is making another pivot, this one on the Jeffrey Epstein case. The U.S. president is calling for more information about the disgraced businessman and sex offender to be made public. It's a 180 from comments Trump made just last week and comes after mounting pressure from his own MAGA movement. Katie Simpson has more from Washington.

As he left the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump could not avoid questions about Jeffrey Epstein. Bowing to mounting pressure, he called on his Attorney General to make more information about the case public. Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release. This is a reversal for Trump, who's been trying to silence criticism of his administration's handling of the Epstein file. The convicted sex offender died by suicide in 2019, while in jail awaiting another trial, accused of running a prolific child sex trafficking ring.

Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. Epstein's very real connections to the world's rich and powerful, making the case a magnet for conspiracy theorists and a fixation for some within Trump's MAGA base. Many now angry that more details have not been shared. How many of you are satisfied you can clap, satisfied with the results of the Epstein investigation clap

Fox News host Laura Ingraham getting plenty of booze as she pulled a conservative political convention popular far-right figures within the MAGA movement are angry too including Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon and Trump's appointees at the FBI have reportedly threatened to quit unless documents are released. The uproar sparked by Elon Musk about a month ago during a fight with Trump he claimed on social media the reason the Epstein files hadn't been released is because Trump is named in them.

While the White House denied the claims, it's done little to satisfy some in Trump's base. The Jeffrey Epstein phenomenon is something that really has just gotten out of Donald Trump's control. American investigative journalist Dave Leventhal says Trump has never faced this kind of backlash before, noting that Trump has used conspiracy theories to his political advantage for years. Why doesn't he show his birth certificate? Trump helped fuel false claims about former President Barack Obama and he did the same with COVID and election fraud.

Conspiracy theories are double-edged sword. You kind of politically live by them and then you can politically be injured by them just as well. While Trump says the Attorney General should release more information, Pam Bondi is not committing to that at least yet. Nothing about Epstein. I'm not going to talk about Epstein. At an unrelated event, Bondi dodged questions about the case. The lack of transparency guaranteeing there will be more questions to come.

Katie Simpson, CBC News, Washington. We're here to try to help them recover a little bit by tearing out all the wet. That was Don Stansell. He's one of dozens of volunteers in central Texas, helping people rebuild from the catastrophic July 4th floods. More than 130 people were killed. Dozens of others are still missing. Many were connected to children's summer camps. And the disaster is creating new concern about how kids camps here in Canada deal with emergencies.

Jessica Chung reports. These are the cabins that we have mostly girl campers stay in these cabins. Preparing for another batch of campers to come in, David Seeley, the executive director of Stillwood Camp near Abbotsford BC, says safety is front of mind especially on the heels of the flooding disaster in Texas. When we hear about a tragedy it does make us relook at what we've done. It makes us look at where our policies are.

Earlier this month, floods in Texas swept through and all girls' Christian camp counselors tried to protect their campers as the water rose. But they weren't able to evacuate in time and dozens were killed. When something like this happens, we feel it across North America. Matt Wilfred is with the Canadian Camping Association, which advocates for provincially accredited camps in this country. Those camps have safety plans and evacuation procedures, conduct emergency drills, and have mandatory first aid training for staff,

all of which are reviewed yearly. Wilfred says this latest tragedy will have an impact on how camps deal with emergency situations. I anticipate that in this upcoming off season of camp operations, it's going to be a lot of professional development that will continue to happen around extreme weather and certainly around heavy rain and flooding. But experts say floods like the ones that hit Texas aren't the main preoccupation here in Canada. Actually a larger issue is wildfire.

John Clague is a professor at Simon Fraser University. He specializes in natural hazards. The owners and operators of summer camps need to definitely have plans in place to deal with a sudden wildfire that develops because they can move incredibly fast. It takes very little time for an out of control wildfire to travel a few kilometers. Something Sealy says his camp prepares for. It takes very little time for an out of control wire fire to travel a few kilometers. Something Sealy says his camp prepares for. There's a plan in place and drills are run weekly.

We have alarms that go off. Everybody would meet at a muster point. We would transport people directly out down whatever road is available. But there's another concern that's paramount. Trees are probably our biggest natural disaster risk. Whether it be a tree falling because it gets old and dies or in fire as well. So we try to mitigate that with looking at our trees on an annual basis and we cut down a lot of trees. Sealy says they want to reassure campers and their families that kids will be safe. The reason why we're out here is because it's enjoyable to be

out here. There's health benefits to be out here as well. So campers can focus on making lasting memories. Jessica Chung, CBC News, Lindal Beach, BC. There are new warnings tonight about Canada's competitive rental housing market where finding tenants can be just as hard as finding an apartment. Some landlords turn to real estate agents for help. But a CBC investigation has found they may not be getting what or who they think they've paid for.

Eli Glasner reports. He said he was gonna do a full background check to make sure that we can get you the best quality tenant into your space. What ended up happening was we were up $14,000. That's Misha Hamara, one of a number of landlords CBC spoke to frustrated with services they say real estate agents fail to provide. With high rental rates and housing at a premium, some landlords pay agents to help find reliable tenants. Landlords like Brampton, Ontario's Sanal Haq, Zaharwar. He and his extended family pooled their resources to buy a rental property in Whitby and paid

a real estate agent one month's rent to find a good tenant. At first, everything seemed promising. I taught as a coach and his wife as a nurse. I found them to be responsible and good people. Then the rent payments stopped. When Zaharwar looked into the tenants' references, he found many of them were fake. After months of non-payment, his brother has been forced to move in with him. So we are doing whatever we can to continue to pay the mortgages, the bills, accept the

property tax because we have absolutely nothing left anymore. Like many, Zaharwar thought he was protecting himself by hiring an agent to vet tenants. But Zaharwar says it turns out the contract didn't include that service, even though he says the agent promised it. That's their job, but now it's becoming my job because they didn't do it or they knew about it and they just wanted to make a quick buck.

As the price of rent has skyrocketed, so have rates of tenant application fraud. According to the Ontario site Rent Panda, fraudulent documents quadrupled between 2022 and 2025. Fear of fraud is part of what drives landlords to engage the services of real estate agents. But property manager Pamela O'Hagan says she doesn't trust realtors.

She showed us a document from a realtor for what was supposed to be a recommended tenant. It took about 10 minutes to fully go through it and realize there's not a piece of information within here aside from their names that was accurate. Her recommendation for landlords, do your own vetting. So what do you do if you have an issue with an agent you hired? Many provinces have their own real estate councils. When CBC contacted Ontario's regulator,

they said they've received some complaints about vetting, but don't see it as a significant trend. But since CBC began investigating the story in December, the Ontario regulator has changed communication to members, saying there may be some confusion about standard forms. Paralegal Bita DeLisi trains realtors. She says while agents may give the impression of providing vetting services, it's not in the rental contract.

Landlords need to take responsibility. They need to read what they sign with the listing brokerage. They need to get involved with pre-screening and pre-qualifying. As for Zarwar, he's now on medication for depression and anxiety. His dream property a nightmare, all because of the tenant, and he says the agent who received $1,600 commission. Eli Glaster, CBC News, Toronto. The fate of 400 ostriches on a British Columbia farm remains in limbo tonight. The owners went before the Federal Court of Appeal looking to stop a cull ordered months ago after some of the birds tested positive for avian flu. The animals

owners aren't the only ones trying to save them. Their situation gained widespread attention after US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. picked up the cause. Olivia Stefanovic reports. The Health Department needs to take a step back. A small but passionate group of supporters gathers outside of the Federal Court of Appeal in downtown Ottawa, wearing shirts with pictures of some of the 400 ostriches whose lives hang in the balance following a call order. And it breaks my heart. Absolutely breaks my heart.

James Earl doesn't know the bird's owners but still traveled from southwest Manitoba to attend the one-day hearing. It's crucial, it's crucial to every last person in Canada if not the world that the CFIA backs off with this horrible egregious mandate. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency or CFIA ordered the cull after avian flu was detected at the Universal Ostrich Farm in B.C.'s West Kootenay's last December. In the weeks that followed, dozens of birds died, but nearly 400 survived. And even though owner Katie Pizintney says the birds are healthy. The CFIA wants the entire flock destroyed. They have many more, many more years to live.

It would be a mass slaughter. And there would be no repairing what the devastation that would bring to our families. The case is stirring emotions across the country and its borders. I'm horrified by the idea that they're going to kill these animals. Speaking to American radio, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. They're not badly affected by bird flu and we should not be killing them. We should be studying them.

The family is reconsidering an offer by celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, now head of the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to relocate the birds to his ranch in Florida. But the family hopes the animals can stay in Canada. I think British Columbians are a little bit frustrated. BC Premier David Eby is urging the CFIA to show leniency. What's hard to watch is a lack of discretion and ability to evaluate case-by-case scenarios. In this case, the agency says a specific type of avian flu was detected, the same kind that caused a human infection in Ohio.

And since the CFIA must follow the stamping out policy, an internationally recognized standard to prevent the spread of disease, the coal must stand, something Positny says would be unimaginable. It's the loss of not only livelihoods, it is the loss of almost 400 souls that don't deserve to die. After hearing four hours of arguments on both sides, the Federal Court of Appeal reserved its decision, leaving the fate of the ostriches in limbo. For now, they live another day. Olivia Stefanovic, CBC News, Ottawa.

We close tonight with a national tribute in Quebec and a final goodbye to a powerful voice and a musical icon. Merci pour tout Serge Fiori. Merci. Quebec Premier François Legault among the thousands of friends, family and fans of Serge Fiori pouring into a national funeral held this afternoon in downtown Montreal. The beloved musician died last month on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day following a long illness. He was 73. Fiori founded and fronted the progressive folk rock band Harmonium in the early 1970s.

With his dreamy lyrics and the band's lush, sophisticated arrangements, Harmonium's three albums are considered cult classics in Quebec. Music critic and radio host Claude Rajotte says the band reshaped the province's musical identity. Their songwriting was elevating the quality of music in Quebec and also the production,

which is very important for Harmonium. You never knew what they were going to come up with. It was an event when Harmonium was going to release an album. While achieving superstar status in their home province, Harmonium was also a rare Quebec act to catch on in English-speaking Canada and the United States. The group was once offered a million dollars to re-record and release its songs in English. An offer Fiori, who was fluently bilingual, famously turned down, saying his music would lose its essence in another language. This has been Your World Tonight for Tuesday, July 15th.

I'm Stephanie Scanderis. Thank you for being with us. Good night. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.