Skip to content
Should Canada answer Trump's tariffs? | The Professor Is In episode artwork

Jul 25, 2026 21 min

Should Canada answer Trump's tariffs? | The Professor Is In

from Think Like An Economist

In this episode of The Professor Is In, Justin Wolfers digs into the latest tariffs on Canada, answering subscriber questions and responding to comments from his earlier Diving In He addresses the suspicious timing of these new tariffs, break down the confusing dairy tariff-rate quota, and argues that total US-Canada dairy trade — about a billion dollars against hundreds of billions in overall trade — isn't worth blowing up either economy over. On whether Canada should retaliate, Justin borrows Joan Robinson's "rocks in the harbour" metaphor: most of a tariff's cost lands on the country imposing it, so matching Trump would mostly hurt Canadians. Finally, Justin discusses the biggest issue: trust. Once a president tears up a deal he signed, the value of his next signature is zero — and that discourages the deep, long-run cross-border investment that has defined North American trade over the past several decades. Canadian Tariffs Diving In: https://omny.fm/shows/platypus-economics/the-biggest-economic-story-nobodys-talking-about-diving-in Subscribe on YouTube 👉 https://youtube.com/platypuseconomics Subscribe on Substack 👉 https://newsletter.platypuseconomics.com Follow on Social Media @PlatypusEconomics and @JustinWolfers

Episode details come from the podcast's RSS feed.

Embed this episode

Ready to play

Should Canada answer Trump's tariffs? | The Professor Is In

0:00 21:41

No transcript yet.

Requests help us decide what to transcribe next.

Frequently asked questions

How long is this episode of Think Like An Economist?

This episode is 21 minutes long.

When was this Think Like An Economist episode published?

This episode was published on July 25, 2026.

Can I download this Think Like An Economist episode?

Yes. Use the download control on the episode player to save the publisher-provided media file.