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Trump tariffs

1 article

AccountabilityMay 29, 20267 min read
Carney Promised "the Strongest Economy in the G7." Canada Just Entered a Technical Recession. Mexico, Facing the Same Tariffs, Did Not.
Mark Carney won the 2025 federal election on a central economic promise — repeated verbatim when he called the April 28, 2025 election — to "build the strongest economy in the G7" and to manage Canada through President Trump's tariff war. As of the most recent Statistics Canada national-accounts data, the Canadian economy has recorded two consecutive quarters of annualized real-GDP decline (Q4 2025 at approximately -1.0% annualized and Q1 2026 at approximately -0.1% annualized), meeting the standard definition of a technical recession — the first since the COVID-19 contraction of 2020. Three of the last four quarters have shown negative annualized real-GDP growth. The article states the honest nuance: on a non-annualized quarter-over-quarter basis, Q1 2026 was marginally positive, so the "recession" designation rests on the annualized figures (which are the standard measure used by economists and which the financial press has used to call the recession). For comparison, Mexico — whose economy is more dependent on exports to the United States than Canada's (over 80% of Mexican exports go to the U.S.) and which faces comparable or heavier Trump tariffs — grew approximately 0.6-0.7% in 2025, its weakest performance since the pandemic but still positive, narrowly avoiding recession on the strength of a late-year export surge. The article documents Carney's promise, the recession data, the Mexico comparison, and the honest qualifiers: the tariff shock is exogenous (Trump's decision, not Carney's), Carney has been in office only since March 2025, Mexico's growth is weak rather than strong, and the two economies are structurally different.

Carney Promised "the Strongest Economy in the G7." Canada Just Entered a Technical Recession. Mexico, Facing the Same Tariffs, Did Not.

Mark Carney won the 2025 federal election on a central economic promise — repeated verbatim when he called the April 28, 2025 election — to "build the strongest economy in the G7" and to manage Canada through President Trump's tariff war. As of the most recent Statistics Canada national-accounts data, the Canadian economy has recorded two consecutive quarters of annualized real-GDP decline (Q4 2025 at approximately -1.0% annualized and Q1 2026 at approximately -0.1% annualized), meeting the standard definition of a technical recession — the first since the COVID-19 contraction of 2020. Three of the last four quarters have shown negative annualized real-GDP growth. The article states the honest nuance: on a non-annualized quarter-over-quarter basis, Q1 2026 was marginally positive, so the "recession" designation rests on the annualized figures (which are the standard measure used by economists and which the financial press has used to call the recession). For comparison, Mexico — whose economy is more dependent on exports to the United States than Canada's (over 80% of Mexican exports go to the U.S.) and which faces comparable or heavier Trump tariffs — grew approximately 0.6-0.7% in 2025, its weakest performance since the pandemic but still positive, narrowly avoiding recession on the strength of a late-year export surge. The article documents Carney's promise, the recession data, the Mexico comparison, and the honest qualifiers: the tariff shock is exogenous (Trump's decision, not Carney's), Carney has been in office only since March 2025, Mexico's growth is weak rather than strong, and the two economies are structurally different.