Joseph Steinberg, professor of economics at the University of Toronto, analyzes President Trump&#x27;s threat of 50 percent tariffs on certain Canadian exports. He argues the actual economic impact may be less severe than headlines suggest, as the tariffs would affect only a small portion of Canadian exports and major sectors remain exempt. Steinberg advocates for measured responses over retaliation, questions the effectiveness of Canada&#x27;s alcohol embargoes against U.S. products, and suggests some U.S. complaints merit consideration during ongoing CUSMA negotiations. The Hub is Canada’s fastest growing independent digital news outlet. Subscribe to The Hub&#x27;s podcast feed to get our best content when you are on the go: https://tinyurl.com/3a7zpd7e (Apple) https://tinyurl.com/y8akmfn7 (Spotify) Follow The Hub on X: https://x.com/thehubcanada?lang=en CREDITS: Amal Attar-Guzman - Producer Alisha Rao - Editor Rudyard Griffiths - Host Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press - Photo Credit Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why Trump's 50 percent tariff threat may be overblown

Hub Podcasts

5-0-50, you heard it, 50 percent tariffs being threatened by the President of the United States on Canada. Just how big is this latest tariff threat by President Trump? What's the potential impact on our exports and the economy to help break it all down? A real pleasure to welcome back on Hub Podcasts, Joseph Steinberg, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto and the Hub's go-to person on all things trade-related. Joseph, great to be in conversation with you.

Yeah, happy to be here as always, Roger. Let's begin, Joseph, by drawing on some early work that you've done just in the last 24 hours, kind of estimating the effect of this latest set of trade threats from the President on Canadian exports.

What's the scale? How big could be the export hit on Canadian companies? Well, so according to my calculations, this tariff threat will cover something like 5.5 percent of our exports that are currently largely not facing any tariffs at all, as they are currently into the U.S.

under the CUSMA rules and are therefore exempt from the U.S.'s global tariff regime. So 50 percent tariffs on an additional roughly 5 percent of our exports. You should expect that to raise kind of the average effective tariff on our exports by something like 2.5 percentage points. So, Joseph, what was the baseline that that 2.5 is being added to?

You know, the President is also musing that he will be reintroducing this week some new set of tariffs to, again, seemingly claw his way back after the Supreme Court reversal on his earlier tariff powers to some kind of global 10 percent tariff on all imports into the United States.

Why Trump's 50 percent tariff threat may be overblown

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

Why Trump's 50 percent tariff threat may be overblown

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.