The province’s minister responsible for finance said today the province is anticipating potential tariffs from the U.S. incoming as soon as next week, as Canadians await U.S. president-elect Donald Trump taking office on Monday.
Brenda Bailey said her team crunched the numbers with an economic model which assumes Trump would apply the 25 per cent tariffs to Canada, which our country would respond to in kind.
“The numbers that we get are that this could mean 124,000 lost jobs in British Columbia, $69 billion in GDP loss, and an unemployment rate that goes to 7.1, so those are very serious numbers.”
When asked about the idea that Canada could avoid the economic strife by fixing policy problems identified by the president-elect, Bailey said nobody knows for sure what Trump’s objectives are. She suggested some people collaborating on the “team Canada,” approach to preparations for the Trump administration could want to avoid losing negotiating power by making concessions involving issues such as the boarder or illicit drug trade.
She said she wants everyone to know the province is taking this seriously, although recognized some people believe Trump is all bark and no bite.
“He’s a big talker for sure, but we actually think this is going to happen,” she said, noting signs of action such as Trump setting up an office which seems to be for the purpose of administrating new tariffs.
Bailey was on CFAX 1070 with Al Ferraby today (Jan. 17).