Aug 25, 2026
Steve Forbes, chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media, wants Washington and Ottawa to stand down. In an opinion column published August 25, he argues tariffs function as a tax on the country that imposes them, framing new U.S. duties on Canadian goods as a self-inflicted cost for American buyers rather than a win for the United States.
Forbes called the tariff fight “utterly pointless” and urged President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney to settle it quickly. It was a bold — and very public — request made by a very influential man heading up a very influential media brand. (More than 150 million people read Forbes through digital, print or social media each month.)
Why today’s tariffs jeopardize tomorrow’s economic future
Forbes’s central point is that a tariff works like a tax paid by importers and typically passed on to consumers. This is the very point many trade economists have been making over the last 18 months.
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The concern is that a trade war jeopardizes the renewal of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA / USMCA), the pact governing continental trade. CUSMA is currently under negotiation — with a future that hinges on how the current U.S./Canada trade dispute is resolved. According to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, CUSMA is vital for Canada because it secures duty-free access to its largest and most critical foreign markets, underpinning millions of Canadian jobs and cross-border supply chains
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What’s different about the tariffs this week
The most recent U.S. tariffs invoke a Depression-era provision of the Tariff Act of 1930 that had never previously been used, applying a 50% duty to more than 550 Canadian products.
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These new tariffs, which kicked in on Saturday, August 22, are expected to affect about C$27.68 billion (US$20 billion) in Canadian goods, which represents roughly 5% of the C$528.52 billion (US$381.92 billion) worth of products that the country sent to the U.S. last year.
The list of goods impacted by the tariffs is long and includes: wine, honey, cement, hockey equipment, furniture and jewelry.
Trump has also said he will double the tariff on Canadian-made cars, trucks and auto parts — from the current 25% to 50% — starting January 1, 2027.
Ottawa’s response, effective September 8, is to match the U.S. duties dollar-for-dollar, targeting American steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics.
Where this new tax will show up in your budget, first
For most households, the near-term price effect is likely to be modest since the tariffed goods make up a small slice of total trade. The bigger risk, according to Andreas Schotter, a professor of international business at Western University’s Ivey Business School, is to jobs and local spending in exposed industries.
This more serious risk won’t show in household budgets due to direct sticker price changes. As Schotter explains, the invisible impact will be felt when job shifts are cancelled, hiring delays become the norm, and businesses opt to postpone investment and development.
For example, a family that regularly buys imported dairy, small appliances or electronics could see prices on those specific items climb faster than the broader inflation rate, even while their overall grocery bill barely moves.
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And this isn’t theory — as markets have already reacted. The S&P/TSX Composite whipsawed after talks collapsed late last week, according to Bloomberg reports, with industrial and consumer-discretionary stocks sliding even as gold miners gained.
What it means for your rate outlook and portfolio
The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25% on July 15 for a sixth consecutive decision, citing continued uncertainty tied to U.S. trade policy, and its own tariff assumptions now peg the average U.S. duty on Canadian exports at about 5%. The next rate announcement lands September 2 — six days before Canada’s retaliation begins — so any signal from Governor Tiff Macklem will fall squarely inside the trade-war timeline.
For homeowners renewing a mortgage within the next year, that argues for budgeting around a hold rather than betting on a near-term cut.
For investors, the swings already hitting tariff-exposed sectors are a reminder that concentrated bets on any single industry carry more risk while this dispute is ongoing.
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Romana King, Senior Editor at Money.ca, also writes for various North American publications and the RKHomeowner blog. Her book, House Poor No More, is an Amazon bestseller and five-time award winner, including the 2022 New York CPA Society's Excellence in Financial Journalism (EFJ) Book Award.
