Trump Tariffs:

What’s Signal and What’s Noise


Carlo Dade
January 2025
Read the full brief

Trump’s ‘we-have-no-idea-how-much’ across the board tariffs are either the biggest economic disaster to befall Canada, the opening salvo in a re-imagination of Canada-U.S. relations since the war of 1812 (which we won, by the way) or just a New Yorker’s negotiating stunt. And after the first day in office we still don’t know, which isn’t surprising from a president who weaponizes uncertainty. How do we separate the signal from the noise coming from a very noisy source? Well, Mr. Trump, you have our attention – so Now What?

The following What Now? policy brief is an edited and expanded annotation of a conversation between Carlo Dade, Director of the Canada West Foundation’s Trade and Trade Infrastructure Centre, and Matt Galloway, host of CBC’s The Current that was originally broadcast on January 9, 2025. The annotated and expanded answers include content from CWF interviews with Andrew Chang for CBC’s About That show. We thank the Current and CBC News for the questions that framed this policy brief.

Read the What Now

Carlo Dade is Director of Trade and Trade Infrastructure at the Canada West Foundation. 


Further reading