Gooooooood morning (or whenever you’re reading this)! I’m Martin, The Margin’s new Social Video Producer, and not halfway through my first day I was informed that the team had given me a nickname before I’d even started. Boy, the mix of elation and terror that caused! A good nickname locks you into the collegial, business-casual banter that, I assume, brings you closer to heaven. Get a bad nickname and you’re in hell forever. My mind raced: Was it related to video production? Scorsese? No, something more current, surely? Well, I got it on the first try – I’ll let you decide if it’s a good one.

– Martin ‘Marty Supreme’ Molpeceres, Social Video Producer

The takeaway: NVIDIA(NASDAQ:NVDA) explains a lot of the positive movement in the markets this week. The chipmaker projected their revenue would increase 70% over the next fiscal year, which shot the share price up 8.7% and contributed to a tech rally that helped to quell some AI bubble fears. On the TSX, gold prices saw a big drop, while the finance sector also experienced some losses, but the composite managed to recover slightly by Thursday close.

We may not have asked for one, but Canadians are spoiling for a fight. Ever since Carney ordered his negotiators to abandon trade talks with the US, then announced retaliatory tariffs on $27.6 billion worth of American goods, the headlines have been praising the Prime Minister’s valour. Canadians, indeed, are along for the ride: an Angus Reid poll from Sunday showed 62% favoured the counter-tariffs. Painful as the coming trade war may be, Canada seems ready to duke it out.

But in the immortal words of Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” It’s very easy to talk tough before a fight, but this trade war hasn’t even really begun yet: Carney’s tariffs won’t kick in until Sept. 8, and it’ll take even longer for the impacts on prices and jobs to emerge. 

One estimate says Trump’s tariffs could cost 90,000 Canadian jobs, but companies aren’t going to lay everyone off overnight. And while Carney’s own tariffs on American imports aren’t expected to have immediate price impacts, many do target industrial goods that could, in theory, trickle down into end-product prices over time.

So Canadians, mark your words. In the coming weeks and months, look for those who cry uncle before the fight is over, and check to see what they said when the news first broke, when everyone was still full of fight – and no one had been punched in the mouth yet.

The bottom line: The question now is: How long will this trade war last? Trump has a strong chance of losing the House and Senate in November’s midterm elections in the US, which might slow his roll. And yet, for a President keen on ignoring his own democracy, that may not matter. This could be a long one.

by Anthony Milton

This is an excerpt of an article originally run in full on The Margin.

If you didn’t know better, you’d think this was a club. The audience crowds towards the stage, packed cheek to jaw in the dimly-lit space, the lack of light accentuating the trippy projections behind the band, Japanese-American art rock pioneers Deerhoof. It's a big deal to see them here – this is the only Canadian venue on the tour, and their latest album came out to solid reviews. Yet this isn't one of the city’s renowned stages, like Sneaky Dee’s or the Horseshoe Tavern, nor is it a major stadium like RBC Amphitheatre or Scotiabank Arena. Nope. This is a church basement, complete with blank white walls and fluorescent lights, transformed into a place where magic happens.

In the year of our Lord 2026, churches are becoming some of the best places to see innovative new acts in Canada. As the congregations worshipping within them get ever smaller, and the buildings they own get more expensive to maintain, churches across Canada are looking for innovative ways to make some extra cash. One option is to undergo drastic redevelopments; another is to make better use of the space they have already. The result has been a proliferation of new and unexpected synergies in recent years, with weirder and more wonderful acts taking over the basements – and, in some cases, the holy sanctuaries themselves. From amateur wrestling to acid rock concerts, there’s a whole economy chugging along in (and under) sacred spaces.

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Martin Molpeceres, Social Video Producer: Elbows are at DEFCON: UP again, so it's time to play every pundit's favourite game: what, exactly, is Donald Trump's deal?

Much ink has been spilled over his ideological chameleonship: a hawk and a dove, a globalist and an isolationist, a capitalist and a… Maoist, apparently? Making sense of it may be a fool's errand, but allow this fool a crack at it, via my homeland of Uruguay. Trump is no ideologue, mis amigos. He is a Caudillo.

Caudillos emerged from Spain's colonial chaos. Armed with agrarian estates called haciendas, these wealthy strongmen derived power from force, charisma, and personal relationships. Everything flowed through El Patrón, who molded governments into networks of patriarchal clientelism. Caudillos bent the knee to no law, no institution. After all, what is a distant congress to the man feeding your family? Crucially, their chauvinism bore no coherent ideology.

On the American hacienda, patronage runs through Trump. Tariffs are declared and rescinded to reward friends and punish foes. Officials supplicate to El Don, foreign policy runs on personal relationships, the weak subordinated, the strong respected. Some call this ‘spheres of influence’ or vassalage. On the American hacienda, it's merely Don Donald's prerogative.

So welcome to América, America. Allow me to paraphrase Simón Bolívar, history's greatest caudillo: "Governing América is like plowing the sea."

From The Margin group chat:

We ask; you answer; we share our favourites next week. Simple!

This week, we want to know: What are the best Canadian substitutes for US products you no longer want to buy?

Email us your answers by next Thursday, Sept. 3 at 12 p.m. ET – we might feature it in next week's issue!

If you liked this newsletter, hated this newsletter, or are totally indifferent to it, hit the reply button and tell us why! We’re so lonely.

This week’s contributors: Tyler Haw (audience engagement), Amarah Hasham-Steele (staff writer), Shazia Khan (social media strategy manager), Anthony Milton (content lead), Martin Molpeceres (social video producer), Kat Angus (deputy editor), and Eric Wainwright (editor in chief).

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