President Donald Trump claimed to support the little guy against the elite.
But after four years in power, examination of Donald Trump’s economic record in reaching that goal has been set aside as the impeachment fight moves on to the Senate.
Just as a new report by a U.S. business group shows Trump’s trade battles with China alone led to major job losses, there is a danger that as factions take sides over whether he did or did not incite an insurrection, the president’s economic successes and failures will be obscured.
There are still plenty in the U.S. financial sector who celebrate the tax cuts and low interest rates that propelled markets to new heights. But markets are not necessarily a good proxy for economic success, something repeatedly pointed out by Janet Yellen when she chaired the U.S. Federal Reserve.
“The stock market isn’t the economy,” said Yellen, who U.S. president-elect Joe Biden has said he will nominate as the first woman treasury secretary, in 2020. “The economy is production and jobs, and there are shortfalls in virtually every sector.”
That flawed relationship has certainly shown itself to be true over the past year as the COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed the U.S. economy. Growth figures for the year, out later this month, are expected by economists to show U.S. GDP shrank by about three per cent even while the stock market finished the year at record highs.
Economic champions?
There is little doubt that Trump and his administration staked out their turf as champions of the economy. But some of the policies that they supported, including down-playing the impact of the virus to allow the economy to remain open, proved to be short-sighted.
While it is impossible to prove, many critics have said earlier acceptance of the pandemic’s dangers could have reduced the devastating effects of the pandemic not just on the record-setting death toll in the U.S., but on the economy as well.
One of the great successes of the Trump administration was on job growth. Despite their opponents’ objections to the post-Reagan conservative strategy of letting the economy rip at the expense of government planning and spending, unemployment rates repeatedly fell to new record lows.
Just before the pandemic came and swept it all away, wage rates for the lowest-paid workers were beginning to creep up. Yellen’s successor at the Fed, Jerome Powell, has said that as the poor suffered the most from COVID-19 job losses, it could be years before wages would start to rise again.
People line up in Kentucky in June 2020 to get help with COVID-19 jobless claims. Before the pandemic a major Trump success was low unemployment and early signs of rising wages. (Bryan Woolston/Reuters)
Failing to plan for the future is a good economic strategy if nothing goes wrong, but the arrival of COVID-19 was an example of why that is not a foolproof approach. Shortages of personal protective equipment, the weakening of the once-mighty U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and failure to build a promised working replacement for Obamacare likely made the economic impact of the pandemic worse.
In this regard the U.S. was not alone. Canada had also let its guard down, including its failed reorganization of the country’s Global Public Health Intelligence Network, which has previously led the world as an early warning system for disease outbreaks.
Aversion to planning and failure to take expert advice can lead to short term advantages, like keeping costs down. But in areas such as climate change planning, many otherwise conservative business leaders have made the case for a long term economic benefit in leading the way on green measures. Now, under Biden, U.S. industry will be playing catch-up.
WATCH | Even pre-pandemic, there were holes in the U.S. economy (Feb. 2020):
U.S. President Donald Trump often points to the rising stock market when he claims responsibility for economic strength, but he doesn’t mention a lack of job growth or struggling sectors including manufacturing and coal. 2:19
Economics by populist appeal
Perhaps one of the biggest flaws in Trump’s economic strategy was that he chose policy based on how it would appeal to the ideology of his populist base. Sometimes things that appeal to a large number of people are simply wrong.
Immigration is one example. Blocking the arrival of highly skilled foreigners may sound like it is saving jobs for U.S. citizens, but the policy that helped Canada grab some of those people instead, is widely seen by labour economists as having the opposite effect.
Protectionism is another example. Trump’s attacks on Canada as a trade cheat may have played well to the Make America Great Again audience, but they were almost universally opposed by economists and U.S. businesses interested in making the economy stronger.
Tear gas is released into the crowd at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. An economy even more divided between rich and poor may actually hurt Trump supporters even while it inflames their political outrage with the current system. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)
Trump’s hard line on Canada and the renegotiation of NAFTA may have gained the U.S. some small advantages in the short term but also lost as much in good will. Wins and losses are hard to calculate, but last week Reuters reported on a study by U.S. businesses that showed Trump’s trade war with China, rather than bringing employment home, cost the economy 245,000 jobs.
Perhaps the biggest flaw in Trump’s economic strategy is the one that he celebrated as his biggest success: his $1.5-trillion overhaul of the U.S. tax system. While claiming to speak for poorer working Americans, it has been widely recorded that Trump’s financial support came from the rich who benefited from tax cuts and rising markets.
Especially after the impact of COVID-19, those measures have left the U.S. more starkly divided between rich and poor than when Trump took office.
Meanwhile, some of those who supported and benefited from Trump’s economic policy, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have now added their voices to the chorus criticizing the president.
Now, rather than taking a hard look at Trump’s economic policy, what went right and what went wrong, the impeachment may actually create even greater division.
Whether the Senate ultimately votes to convict Trump or not, the rising temperature of political outrage will make sober analysis next to impossible, with the danger of leaving the Trump presidency’s net benefit for the U.S. economy poorly examined.
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
