“First” may become last

The political slogans of “America First” and “Canada First” may be heralding paths that will ultimately fulfill the Christian caution that “the first will be last”  [Mark 10:31; Mt 19:30; Lk 13:30].

In an editorial in the Economist, dated April 2nd 2025 Mr Trump is quoted as saying that he “couldn’t care less” if car prices rise as a result of his tariffs.

But pricier imports and the rising cost of making cars in America will undoubtedly hit sales. Americans bought 16m cars last year. This year that figure could tumble by 1m-2.5m, analysts predict, with the models most affected being cheap ones that would be unprofitable to import or manufacture at home. Making fewer, more expensive cars and pricing out poorer buyers is an odd sort of liberation. (the Economist, n.d.)

Unifor, Canada’s largest union in the private sector, representing 320,000 workers in every major area of the economy, reports that Stellantis has responded to the imposition of a 25% auto tariff with the temporary layoff of thousands of Unifor Local 444 members at Windsor Assembly Plant and additional layoffs in Mexico and at U.S. facilities.

“Unifor warned that U.S. tariffs would hurt auto workers almost immediately and in this case the layoffs were announced before the auto tariff even came into effect,” said Unifor National President Lana Payne. “Trump is about to learn how interconnected the North American production system is the hard way, with auto workers paying the price for that lesson.” (the Economist, n.d.)

Bridge Michigan, a self proclaimed nonpartisan, nonprofit news source, notes that Trump previously imposed targeted tariffs on steel and aluminum, in addition to targeted 25% tariffs on certain Canadian and Mexican imports.

Economists at the University of Michigan recently predicted steel and aluminum tariffs will cost the state about 2,300 payroll jobs in 2026 — but their forecast is based on an assumption that "long-lasting, broad-based tariffs on Mexico and Canada will be avoided."

Uncertainty remains as to what the administration’s tariff plan means for Michigan’s economy, though experts foresee increased prices for consumers and retaliatory tariffs from other countries that could undo any potential benefits.

“In the sense of applying to a very broad range of goods and services, I would expect the cost-benefit ratio of those tariffs to be less favorable to Michigan,” said Gabriel Ehrlich, an economic forecaster at the University of Michigan. 

“At least with the auto tariffs, there is an important local industry that they're aiming to protect,” he continued, noting that auto import tariffs set to begin Thursday will nonetheless be “very disruptive.” (Trump Announces Sweeping New Tariffs: What They Mean for Michigan, n.d.)

The Trade War coverage on BNNBloomberg.ca includes an article by Stan Choe, of the Associated Press, reporting that world markets are reeling as Trump’s tariffs tank stocks. Little was spared in financial markets as fear flared globally about the potentially toxic mix of higher inflation and weakening economic growth that tariffs can create.

Everything from crude oil to Big Tech stocks to the value of the U.S. dollar against other currencies fell. Even gold, which has hit records recently as investors sought something safer to own, pulled lower. Some of the worst hits walloped smaller U.S. companies, and the Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks dropped 5.9% to pull it more than 20% below its record.

Investors worldwide knew Trump was going to announce a sweeping set of tariffs late Wednesday, and fears surrounding it had already pulled Wall Street’s main measure of health, the S&P 500 index, 10% below its all-time high. But Trump still managed to surprise them with “the worst case scenario for tariffs,” according to Mary Ann Bartels, chief investment officer at Sanctuary Wealth. (Choe, n.d.)

The chaos and disruption that has followed Trump Tariff policy is hardly the environment that the world investment community supports in an economy that claims to be “Number One”.

References

Choe, S. (n.d.). World markets reeling as Trump’s tariffs tank stocks. BNN Bloomberg - Canada Business News, TSX Today, Oil and Energy Prices. Retrieved April 3, 2025, from https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/tariffs/2025/04/03/dow-drops-1100-as-us-stock-market-leads-a-worldwide-sell-off-following-trumps-tariff-announcement/ 

the Economist. (n.d.). Donald Trump’s plan for American carmaking is full of potholes. The Economist | Independent journalism. Retrieved April 3, 2025, from https://www.economist.com/business/2025/03/31/donald-trumps-plan-for-american-carmaking-is-full-of-potholes?utm_campaign=r.the-economist-today&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=4/2/2025&utm_id=2072047 

Trump announces sweeping new tariffs: What they mean for Michigan. (n.d.). Bridge Michigan: Michigan news, state, politics, jobs, education. Retrieved April 3, 2025, from https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/trump-announces-sweeping-new-tariffs-what-they-mean-michigan 

Trump or Truth

Trump Lost the Trade War He Started With Canada

Patricia Lopez, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, reports:

Trump has similarly exaggerated Canada’s trade deficit, which he said is at an “unfair” amount of $250 billion, amounting to a subsidy. (It’s not.) The actual trade deficit stood at $40 billion in 2023, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, and mostly exists because the US buys a lot of Canadian oil. Again, to heat those Midwestern homes. (Lopez, n.d.)

References

Lopez, P. (n.d.). Trump Lost the Trade War He Started With Canada. Bloomberg Opinion. Retrieved February 10, 2025, from https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-02-05/tariffs-trump-lost-the-trade-war-he-started-with-canada 

Worry About Nightmare Climate Scenarios

What are the risks of not addressing the climate emergency? Scientists, engineers, economists, and politicians must ask this question as they plan programs for the rest of the century.

Engineering a green economy

 

Gernot Wagner writes for Bloomberg that the economist Martin Weitzman got scientists and politicians to think about the worst-case outcomes of global warming. He comments that we are seeing them happen right now. It is the extreme hot days, droughts, floods, and other weather phenomena made worse through climate change—that the late, great Martin Weitzman thought about when writing about the “fat tails” of climate change, including in our joint book, Climate Shock.

What would happen if an intense hurricane hit Boston? A powerful storm making landfall along the Gulf coast was bad enough—people would lose their jobs, maybe even their lives. But Florida has seen hurricanes before and knows it will see them again. There are emergency plans in place. Highways have marked evacuation routes. In Boston, the consequences would be devastating. Nobody in New England, including Weitzman, was prepared for that. Thus, he focused on climate as an insurance problem. Cutting carbon now, he argued, was valuable not just because it lowered global average temperatures, but more so because it lowered the chance of catastrophic events… Now it increasingly looks like Weitzman’s own mathematical argument might prove right for the wrong reasons. It may not be the link between CO₂ concentrations and temperatures playing out over decades and centuries that shows how the effect of climate extremes could overshadow all else. The droughts, floods and heatwaves sweeping across the globe show how climate is an insurance problem, right here, right now1.

 

Intact Insurance looks at the emerging risk and suggests how to prepare for climate change.

The good news: you can safeguard your home, property, and belongings. Certain programs exist to counteract the effects of climate change and shield Canadians from the potential impact of environmental  shifts, including initiatives from the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation (Intact Centre), whose resources are available to everyone, regardless of their insurance provider. So, what can homeowners like you do? Two things: find out where you stand and take action.2

The Economist also asks “What’s the worst that could happen?” In a recent article, the author claims three degrees of global warming is quite plausible and truly disastrous. Rapid emission cuts can reduce the risks but not eliminate them. Hot as it is, this year will probably be one of the 21st century's coolest. The extremes of floods and fires are not going away—and urgent action is needed.

A 3°C world is thus both a pretty likely outcome if nothing more gets done and the worst that might still happen even if things go very well indeed. That makes it worth looking at in some detail, and the result is alarming. Those modelling climate impacts have long argued that they do not increase linearly. The further you go from the pre-industrial, the steeper the rate at which damages climb. And as what was rare becomes common the never-before-seen comes knocking (see chart 2). Judging by the results of specific studies, the differences between 2°C and 3°C are, in most respects, far starker than those between 1.5°C and 2°C... Just as today’s world is not uniformly 1.2°C warmer than the pre-industrial, a 3°C world is not uniformly 1.8°C warmer than today (see chart 3). Some regions, chiefly the oceans and parts of South America, will warm less; others will get much hotter. The Arctic, including northern Canada, Siberia and Scandinavia, will receive the brunt of the warming. Some more populated regions are also in for above-average temperatures.3 

The most visible sign of the emergency is the increase in deaths from heat related causes among the people who do not have access to cooling measures. The emergency is real.

 

References

 

1	(2021, July 9). We're Right to Worry About Nightmare Climate Scenarios - Bloomberg. Retrieved July 23, 2021, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-09/we-re-right-to-worry-about-nightmare-climate-scenarios
2	(n.d.). An emerging risk: how to prepare for climate change - Intact Insurance. Retrieved July 23, 2021, from https://www.intact.ca/blog/en/an-emerging-risk-how-to-prepare-for-climate-change.html
3	(2021, July 23). Three degrees of global warming is quite plausible and truly .... Retrieved July 23, 2021, from https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/07/24/three-degrees-of-global-warming-is-quite-plausible-and-truly-disastrous