- In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady talks to Canada’s minister of transport and internal trade Chrystia Freeland about preparing for the upcoming trade war.
- The big story: The White House accidentally leaked plans for a military strike on Yemen in a Signal group chat with the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.
- The markets: Risk on!
- Analyst notes from JPMorgan and EY on recession risk, Convera of the dollar, and Goldman Sachs on equities.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. Business leaders are bracing for tariffs, but they’re still struggling to figure out what exactly those will look like. President Trump’s 25% levy on goods from Canada and Mexico, for example, went into effect on March 4, only for him to pause it for many products two days later. That delay expires on April 2, but no matter what Trump decides, other countries are already making their own plans. To get a better sense of what kind of international environment CEOs should expect moving forward, I spoke with Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s minister of transport and internal trade, who joined us last week at the Fortune CEO Initiative dinner in New York.
Freeland is currently serving under Prime Minister Mark Carney, who just called a national election for April 28. But before that, she was deputy prime minister and minister of finance under Justin Trudeau, and helped negotiate the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Her break with Trudeau over what to do about Trump’s “grave” tariff threats prompted her to leave his cabinet in December, and ultimately helped spark his own resignation announcement in January.
Freeland told me that the tariff war against Canada has reinforced the urgency of removing interprovincial trade barriers. “We don’t have a single Canadian economy; we have 13 economies,” she said, estimating that getting rid of such divisions could add 4% to the country’s GDP. “We are determined,” she added. “I predict we will get it done by July 1,” which, of course, is Canada Day.
In that vein, the Canadian national government announced on March 21 that it would invest C$175 million over the next five years to support operations and maintenance of the Hudson Bay Railway and pre-development activities at the Port of Churchill in Northern Manitoba. The goal: to boost the trade infrastructure and transportation corridor through northern communities. The government also signed a contract for high-speed rail between Quebec City and Toronto.
Freeland emphasized that Canadians feel deeply betrayed by Trump’s trade policies and threats to annex the country as a 51st state, noting that those issues prompted the call for an election later this spring.
“President Trump has upended politics in our country,” she said. “The next prime minister of Canada will be elected based on Canadians’ perception of who can meet that challenge.”
“We want to have a good and respectful relationship. There is a real win-win possible, and it will be great to get back to it.”
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
