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1. Some good news for Canada—the U.S. follows its own trade rules

   The initial U.S. Department of Commerce decision in October to levy tariff duties of almost 300 per cent on Bombardier’s CSeries jets sold in the U.S. became a major flashpoint in bilateral trade relations and cast an additional pall on ...

2. Trump favours tariffs, to the delight of U.S. companies

   Many observers believe that the ongoing “Montreal Round” of NAFTA negotiations, which started last week, represent a make-or-break moment for a “successful” renegotiation of NAFTA. Some reports say Canadian and Mexican trade officials ...

3. Is Canada’s latest NAFTA strategy too ‘insidious and crafty?’

   In Book IV, Chapter 2 of The Wealth of Nations, where he enumerates the benefits of free international trade, Adam Smith leaves only a tiny role for governments. He says the United Kingdom should support its merchant marine because ...

4. Exchange rates can overreact to news reports including NAFTA buzz

   This week a report stating that the Canadian government is increasingly convinced that President Trump will pull the United States out of NAFTA was credited with causing the Canadian dollar to drop from a closing value on Jan. 9 of US$ ...

5. How can people so smart understand economics so little?

   Everybody complains about the pace of change these days, but most people seem to adapt pretty well. One way things are different now is podcasts. They’re the medium of choice for more and more people while driving, exercising or, in my ...

6. Half the world’s cargo ships sail empty—could there be an app for that?

   The last time I read about ballast was as a teenager learning Canadian history. Ships carrying furs or timber to Britain needed ballast coming back to Canada and ironware, rocks and people served that purpose nicely. The real money was ...

7. U.S. and Canada take diverging paths on net neutrality

   The Trump administration recently announced its plan to repeal virtually all of the U.S. government’s existing net neutrality rules. Under the Obama administration, net neutrality rules subjected Internet service providers (ISPs) such as ...

8. Looming U.S. tax changes threaten Canada’s competitiveness

   Besides the negative trade actions taken by the United States against Canada in the form of duties imposed on exports of airplanes and softwood lumber, and the Trump administration’s problematic demands during NAFTA negotiations, ...

9. An 1854 treaty and the lessons for NAFTA

   With the ongoing NAFTA negotiations and the possibility that the United States is going to leave NAFTA and usher in a new protectionist era for North American trade, it may be instructive to visit the past for some guidance. Canada’s ...

10. All our trade doors look unattractive now

    I’ve been reading a new paper by Oxford economic historian Kevin O’Rourke called Two Great Trade Collapses: The Interwar Period & Great Recession Compared, a title that, unlike many academic titles, pretty much catches what the paper ...