Here are five things you need to know this morning
Trump reiterates 25% tariff plan for Canada: U.S. President Donald Trump has redoubled down on his threat to slap a 25 per cent tariff on imports from Canada as soon as tomorrow morning, telling reporters at the White House yesterday that he does indeed intend to go ahead with the plan, presumably via executive order some time in the next 24 hours. As rationale, Trump cited the usual canards that people and drugs are flowing over America’s northern border, as well as his belief that the U.S. is “subsidizing” Canada’s economy via the longstanding trade surplus in goods. He did hold the door open a crack to exempting oil exports, despite his continuing pronouncements that America “doesn’t need” Canadian oil and can meet its own supply domestically. (Apparently those 4 million barrels a day of discounted crude are just for fun)
Gold and TSX hit highs: The price of gold hit a record high of more than US$2,800 an ounce on Thursday as investors flocked to the historic safe haven and inflationary hedge of bullion. That helped buoy the TSX, home to many gold mining shares, and push the benchmark index to a record high close of 25,808. We’ll see if the winning streak continues today.
Canada’s economy shrank in November: New numbers from Statistics Canada this morning are painting a mixed picture of Canada’s economy. On the downside, gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 0.2 per cent in November. That’s the biggest contraction since December of 2023 and below the 0.1 per cent drop that economists were forecasting. But the early numbers for December are looking stronger than previously thought, with 0.2 per cent growth. Combined with October’s data, that puts growth on track for a 1.8 per cent annualized pace for the quarter. That’s better than the one per cent clocked in the previous quarter and in line with the optimistic outlook the Bank of Canada had earlier this week.
Isn’t it AIronic: We’ll be keeping an eye on a several DeepSeek-related news items today, as the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup that went supernova earlier this week continues to roil markets. U.S. officials are probing whether third parties in Singapore allowed the Chinese company to obtain Nvidia chips, flouting a U.S. ban on the technology. And Bloomberg is reporting that hundreds of U.S. companies are rushing to block their employees from accessing the AI assistant, fearful of sensitive customer or employee information making it into unfriendly hands. Reports suggest that Pentagon workers were using the AI chatbot for days before the U.S. government implemented a ban. Because apparently, it’s all well and good for workers to be futzing around with ChatGPT, but once Chinese technology gets involved, hackles start getting raised. And speaking of ChatGPT, OpenAI and its partner Microsoft are probing whether entities linked to DeepSeek might have obtained unauthorized access to OpenAI’s API and used it in the making of DeepSeek. Considering where ChatGPT got a lot of its information from in the first place, newsrooms around the world could perhaps be forgiven for some raised eyebrows on that one. OpenAI’s Sam Altman, meanwhile, is urging U.S. companies and policymakers to invest more in U.S. AI technology, and according to the Wall Street Journal is in talks for another US$40 billion funding round, bringing the company’s valuation to $340 billion.
CN Rail downplays recession risk: Just as rival Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. did a day earlier, Canadian National Railway Ltd. acknowledged the impact that a trade war would have on its business but said it and the overall economy are likely to weather the storm. The rail giant posted earnings after the bell on Thursday, numbers which showed its adjusted earnings per share (EPS) and revenue both declined and came in below expectations. Even with tariffs on both sides of the Canada and U.S. border, CN says it still expects volumes to grow by single digits next year, and says it expects growth in the economy to be “very modest.”
