Today's Take for July 21, 2026
The story: Here we go again. On Tuesday, the Trump administration declared a whopping 50% tariff on a truly random list of Canadian goods: highlights include tortoise shells, dog leashes, mosses and lichens (???), knitted T-shirts, hockey sticks, and ice skates. The US claims the new levies would affect US$20 billion worth of exports, or 5% of Canadian goods sent to the US, and are supposedly in response to what Trump described as Canada’s “unreasonable and unequal” import restrictions on American auto parts, dairy products, and alcohol. (Notably, they don’t include any restrictions on Canadian auto parts themselves, but don’t expect any of this to make sense. Also missing is potash, which the US needs for fertilizer and war munitions.) To do all this, Trump has reached for a never-before-used law dating all the way back to 1930 – and one whose other provisions, coincidentally, helped cause the Great Depression. Go figure.
Why it matters: There’s popular belief that this is really all about CUSMA, the agreement covering trade between the US, Canada, and Mexico that Trump wants to rip up and/or renegotiate. It seems as though he wants to put Canada in a position of weakness going into the talks – and yet, who knows if Trump actually means it or if he'll end up backing off. Yes, 50% tariffs on a sizeable chunk of our trade with the US is a big deal. But also, the guy just kinda says stuff sometimes.
What this means…
- For investors: Cheaper loonies, since the Canadian dollar took a big hit on the news. At time of writing, it’s trading at US$0.71, down 1% from this morning.
- For the economy: Not good news, but perhaps not so bad, either. One year on, Canada has done a surprisingly good job at responding to Trump’s tariffs, both real and imagined. We’ve diversified our trade partners and found new ways of doing business, and in the words of one RBC report from April, “for all the announcements and noise, economies look remarkably similar overall” compared to before the trade war. If Trump’s gambit is to unnerve Canada, keeping a level head may be the best move.
- For makers of fine Canadian hockey sticks, and etc: Pour one out for the manufacturers of knitted T-shirts, ice skates and the like – they have every reason to ask “Why me?!” Even just the threat of tariffs can make it hard to do business, and these sectors may see declining revenue.
- For bourbon enjoyers in BC and Ontario: Empty cups for a while longer. BC Premier David Eby said there’s “not a chance in hell” his province would return US booze to its shelves, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford is similarly defiant.
- For Mark Carney: Carney’s official response was impressively dry and bureaucratic, suggesting he’ll look for a solution at the CUSMA negotiation table, not in the news.
The timeline: Despite Trump’s talk of “ripping up CUSMA,” the deal is still on the books until 2036, and there’s evidence that these new tariffs are in fact illegal under its terms. But one way to make a law go away is to prove it has no force (see US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s speech from February, titled “Don’t Let International Law Get in the Way of Peace and Prosperity”), and that may be what Trump is up to here. Before we can talk about 2036, CUSMA will have to make it through 2026 first.
Bottom line: Trump thinks of himself as a canny dealmaker, but his credibility is at an all-time low just as he has to renegotiate his country’s most consequential trade deal. The US president is increasingly looking like a pigeon in a Skinner box, just absolutely mashing the button that says 'TARIFFS' over and over again.
Follow the Money: Port of Vancouver's Roberts Bank Terminal 2 expansion
The announcement: Ottawa just referred the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 expansion at the Port of Vancouver to the Major Projects Office, which Carney set up for projects his government deems nationally significant. The expansion is meant to create C$100 billion in annual trade capacity, and also add an estimated C$3 billion to the GDP. The referral doesn't cut through all of the red tape, but it's a good first step. Even so, any payoff is still about a decade away, if the expansion even comes to fruition at all.
Who benefits: The Carney Liberals get a high-profile, high-value project to spotlight in their trade-diversification narrative, helping reduce Canada's reliance on the US (and perhaps taking some heat off a government that's been defending its climate record all week as wildfire smoke blankets North America).
What's going on: The feds get a nice boost, but the risk actually falls on local BC communities, as Canada shut down its dedicated port police force in 1997 and never replaced it. Delta, BC Mayor George Harvie has tried to raise the question of port security for several years, especially as expansion plans move forward, and even commissioned his own report. "I just cannot understand why this government and previous governments have just ignored their responsibility to ensure that illicit drugs aren't coming in," Harvie said; Transport Minister Steven McKinnon dismissed the expansion and port security as "separate issues." So yes, the port could see an extra C$100 billion, but for all anyone knows, those shipping containers could be full of Soylent Green.
The FDA flip-flops on Taylor Farms' (alleged) parasite lettuce
Everyone's asking: Did Taylor Farms buy its way out of the diarrhea parasite outbreak scandal?
The better question: Who's still left to check your lettuce for parasites?
Why it matters: We're not jumping to conclusions, and we don't want you to, either. So we'll just calmly and dispassionately lay out the facts:
- On Saturday, the FDA said that a shredded lettuce sample from Taylor Farms de Mexico tested positive for cyclospora, an intestinal parasite that causes explosive diarrhea (among other things).
- By Sunday, the agency called takebacks and claimed that the finding was a false positive, though the FDA emphasized that doesn't change the case for the recall that's already in place.
- Flashback: In January 2025, Taylor Farms hired a lobbyist to represent them in "regulation food safety."
- Around this time, the FDA was working on the Food Traceability Rule, a new law that would make tracing contaminated food faster. It was originally slated to go into effect on Jan 20, 2026.
- On March 20, 2025, the FDA announced they would delay implementation of the rule by 30 months, pushing it to June 2028.
- Six days after the extension, on March 26, 2025, Taylor Farms made a US$1 million donation to a pro-Trump super PAC.
- By September 2025, the team at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut its team responsible for identifying parasitic outbreaks from 11 people to three.
- Back to the present: As of this writing, there are 1,644 confirmed infected cases across five US states from lettuce that went to Taco Bell locations, grocery stores, and even Walmart.
- (So far, there have been no reported cases in Canada – phew.)
To paraphrase Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we're not jumping to conclusions. We took a tiny step, and there conclusions were.
