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1. Economists almost unanimous—rising trade barriers not good

   Trade with China may actually have increased manufacturing employment in the United States. ...

2. Trump administration summons ‘national security’ to justify tariffs

   The Trump administration has justified its tariffs on U.S. imports of steel and aluminum from Canada (and several other countries) on grounds of national security. Under U.S. law, specifically Section 232 of the Trade Adjustment Act of ...

3. The United States calls the kettle black

   Canadians owe Donald Trump a debt of gratitude for repeatedly referring to our average 270 per cent tariffs on dairy products coming into—or trying to come into—this country. For many Canadians, that’s probably the first they’ve heard of ...

4. Withstand the trade war by trading more

   Canada and the United States are in a trade war. The ongoing drama of NAFTA negotiations, and the possibility that the current trade arrangements, may not continue raises an important question. What is the Trudeau government’s Plan B? ...

5. Canada, Trump and tariffs—a counterproductive and self-defeating quarrel

   President Trump’s recent actions have drawn widespread media attention to tariffs. Economic science provides an effective means of discerning the implications amid the hyperbole and rhetoric. Earlier this year, the Trump administration ...

6. The end of Trump-whispering

   I wrote in January about how economists, apart from warning about the consequences, don’t have an awful lot to say about how best to fight a trade war. Adam Smith himself wrote that such wars were a situation in which policy be left to ...

7. Shrinking U.S. trade deficit likely bad news for U.S. trading partners

   Ordinarily, official announcements of the monthly U.S. trade deficit get minimal attention from the media. Not so for the recent announcement by the U.S. Commerce Department of the March 2018 U.S. trade deficit. Numerous media reports ...

8. Under threat—the lucrative export of U.S. dollar notes and U.S. Treasury securities

   President Donald Trump’s policies to balance trade and increase employment will likely fail because of an iron law of international economics: If a country spends more on goods and services than it produces, the difference must be ...