How should Canada respond to Trump's tariffs?

Nerd out with me for this latest episode of The Professor Is In as I dig even deeper into the latest tariffs on Canada,answer subscriber questions, and respond to my comments section.

I address the suspicious timing of these tariffs, break down the confusing dairy tariff-rate quota, and argue that total US-Canada dairy trade — about a billion dollars against hundreds of billions in overall trade — isn't worth blowing up either economy over.

On whether Canada should retaliate, I cite Joan Robinson's "rocks in the harbour" metaphor: much of a tariff's cost lands on the country imposing it, so matching Trump would mostly hurt Canadians.

Finally, I discuss the biggest issue: trust. Once a president established a pattern of tearing up deals he signed, the value of his next signature is zero — and that discourages the deep, long-run cross-border investment that has defined North American trade over the past several decades.

Can trust be rebuilt in a post-Trump world? That remains to be seen.

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