Politico: Inside the collapse of the Canada-US trade deal
“It was an awesome meeting,” Pete Hoekstra, U.S. ambassador to Canada, recently told POLITICO.
It went so well that President Donald Trump invited Carney and his delegation back into the Oval Office to show off his White House ballroom plans, even asking the prime minister for advice on the design. The Canadians were then ushered into a nearby office and offered Trump-branded memorabilia.
Sixteen days later, the talks collapsed.
When you give a society self-actualization on someone else’s tab long enough, they forget it was a gift. They start believing it was organically theirs.
Very much related.
Ron Butler asks the tough question: are the problems in Canada’s private credit market an indication of a financial contagion?
We have Easy Financial. The stock price fell 50% in one day. Is this the private credit contagion?
Um, they’re restating earnings from over a year ago. What? What? What? What sense does that make?
I think something is wrong because you don’t want to see the CEO of a independent financial lending organization both quit within the same two year period.
Money has to be the most marketable commodity, not lines of code on a hard drive. Investors in the latter are finding that out the hard way.
Bitcoin is now down 24% this year and remains roughly 47% below its October all-time high.
The largest failure so far this year has been Blockfills, a midsize prime broker that halted deposits and withdrawals earlier this month amid the decline in bitcoin prices.
All cultures are equal, except yours.
When Stephen Taylor read a CBC Nova Scotia story about the imminent closure of Parks Canada’s Canadian Register of Historic Places website, he knew he had to act.
The register is a national searchable database of historic places recognized by federal, provincial, territorial and local governments.
It contains about 13,500 listings and is slated for decommissioning this spring.
“Reading into it… I felt it would be a tragedy to lose that resource,” Taylor said.
“I felt there was a huge urgency to preserve it, ironically preserving our history, even though that was the point of the original website.”
As a partner and chief technical officer at Shift Media Strategies, Toronto-based Taylor knows a thing or two about web technologies.
That weekend, Taylor used artificial intelligence tools to download all of the data on the old Parks Canada site and rebuild it using modern web standards.
Pretty sure he’ll be arrested.
Mortgage broker Ron Butler goes off on the concept of “blanket appraisals” in the Canadian mortgage market. Basically, they’re a form of fraud that allows lenders to pretend that mortgages on their balance sheets are worth much more than they actually are.
“…I bought it for a million… My lender says it’s only worth 820 and I don’t know what to do. Oh, don’t worry. Don’t worry. We have this… uh, developer loan bank. Yeah. No, no, we can get it done. Don’t worry…”
As economist Daniel Lacalle points out, the rising dollar price of gold does not mean the US dollar is on the way out. Things are a bit more complicated than that in a fiat currency world with no exit ramps.
The same sources that show soaring gold demand also show that there is no true “dedollarization” in the sense of a fiat‑to‑fiat substitution. This also makes sense. The US dollar is the world’s strongest weak currency because it has a higher level of liquidity, more independent institutions, and better legal and investor security than any alternative. The US dollar is losing its place as a global reserve to gold but not losing its position relative to the euro, yen, pound, or yuan.
IMF COFER figures show that the US dollar’s share of allocated FX reserves remains at 59.6%, and when adjusted for exchange‑rate moves, the IMF itself concludes that the dollar’s share has been broadly stable, with recent declines explained mostly by valuation effects, not active selling. The euro, at 20.3%, is not even close to being a contender.
Gold (and silver’s) near meteoric rise in terms of dollar price over the past few months periodically rekindles interest in “monetizing” the gold stock that sits in the vaults of a number of central banks, in the belief that this will usher in a financial bonanza. In my most recent Substack article, I demonstrate why such a move won’t do anything of the sort.
…the proposal that the Treasury can unlock over a trillion dollars of capital, and borrow against it, by correcting a bookkeeping error…might work if the Treasury had not undertaken to rack up $36 trillion in debt in the period since 1973, but that’s clearly not the case today. Simply put, the gold stock has already been borrowed against. Creditors have lent this sum of money to the US government with the knowledge that the gold stock is already implicitly underpinning the debt, even though today it can only underpin a small portion of it.
🚨 GLOBALISM JUST DIED IN DAVOS
Howard Lutnick just walked into the lion’s den — and told the World Economic Forum exactly what they didn’t want to hear.
“Globalism has failed.”
Not whispered.
Not softened.Declared — on their own stage.
He dismantled the entire WEF doctrine… pic.twitter.com/PUzOe0XK7e
— Jim Ferguson (@JimFergusonUK) January 21, 2026
More evidence that the marginal consumer is tapped out as shrinking economies continue to experience declining demand for commodities like oil. Is the concept of an oil pipeline from Alberta to coastal waters even viable at this point?
Even with a recent decision by OPEC to hold production rates steady through the first quarter, the International Energy Agency said last week that it now expects 2026’s oil glut to reach 3.8 million barrels per day.
On the water, crude tankers at sea are now holding more than 1 billion barrels — a figure that has steadily risen over the past few months as sellers have had a harder time finding buyers willing to take the oil.
That’s 600 billion, with a ‘B’. How much of the melt-up was driven by leverage, and who’s left holding the bag for those loans?
After topping $126,000 in October, Bitcoin has fallen sharply, briefly wiping out its 2025 gains before stabilizing on Monday.
With gold and stocks near all-time highs, Bitcoin is the “tip of the risk-assets iceberg and melting,” said Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence. “I expect Bitcoin and most cryptos to keep falling.”
Maybe Dougie should take up a new career in standup comedy. Either that or fiction writing.
Canada’s most populous province projected a deficit of C$13.5 billion ($9.63 billion) for the 2025-26 fiscal year that began in April. That’s down from a C$14.6 billion deficit forecast in a May budget, helped by higher tax revenue, but far wider than the 2024-25 deficit of C$1.1 billion.
Basically, Canada needs US markets a lot more than they need our markets, or anyone else’s for that matter.
Beaudry contrasted Canada’s dependence on global trade — roughly 40 per cent of the economy — with the U.S.’s much lower reliance at about 15 per cent. That difference, he said, helps explain why Washington can afford to use tariffs as a political and fiscal tool without triggering the same level of economic disruption seen elsewhere.
While monetary commodities like gold and silver continue to set new daily records in terms of their dollar price, it’s interesting to note that the dollar prices of non-monetary commodities like oil and copper continue to slide. That’s probably because economies tipping into recession don’t need as much oil and industrial metals as growing ones.
Gold prices rose by over 2% on Monday, buoyed by expectations of further U.S. interest rate cuts and sustained safe-haven demand, as investors awaited upcoming U.S.-China trade talks and inflation data out of the U.S. this week.
But zero percent interest rates ought to fix all those problems, right?
Meanwhile, traders are pricing in a 99% chance that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next week, with another cut in December. Gold, a non-yielding asset, tends to do well in low-interest rate environments.
In reality, it’s a way of saying “we’re moving out” while trying not to make it look too obvious.
Linamar Corp. says it’s expanding its U.S. manufacturing footprint through a US$300 million deal to buy select North American assets of Aludyne Inc.
I’m skeptical that revaluing gold would change much in the finances of the US government, or any other government for that matter, but I’m curious to hear what SDA readers think.
Here’s my take: despite a legislative quirk that pegs the dollar price of gold at a ridiculously low level, I’m quite certain that the creditors to Uncle Sam have already pegged it implicitly at it’s true dollar price. It’s as if your farm was valued at $2 million and you owed $1 million, but your balance sheet hadn’t been updated in years. It’s quite likely that your creditors would have already recalculated that balance sheet for you, or they would not have lent you the money in the first place. Readjust your balance sheet and you will find that you still owe $1 million.
US gold re-marking would have implications for both the Treasury & Fed balance sheets.
- US Treasury: assets would rise by the value of the gold re-marking & liabilities would rise by the size of gold certificates issued to the Fed.
- Federal Reserve: assets would rise by value of gold certificates & liabilities would rise by a crediting of cash in the Treasury cash balance (Exhibit 4). And here is the punchline: the Fed balance sheet impact would look like QE though no open market purchases would be required & Fed liability growth would initially be in TGA.
In other words, the best of all words: a QE-like operation, one which see the Fed quietly funnel almost $700 billion in cash to the Treasury… but without actually doing a thing!
The jump to 15% minimum suggested tips is probably playing a role, but even without that the restaurant industry is struggling with the pandemic hangover and a marginal consumer who cannot afford to eat out.
Three in four Canadians are eating out less, often because of the high cost of living, a Restaurants Canada report published Monday found. That share is even higher among those aged 18 to 34 at 81 per cent.
Restaurants Canada chief executive Kelly Higginson said it’s an “alarming” trend for the foodservice industry.
Because the promised “big one” was taking too long.
The road to recovery after the Palisades Fire has been anything but smooth for a group of historical business owners on the eastern edge of Malibu.
For years, the Reel Inn was a staple along Pacific Coast Highway at Topanga Canyon Boulevard. The famous seafood shack fed surfers and tourists for nearly 40 years.
Its sign is now in a pile of rubble, and because of a yearslong dispute over land use, the Reel Inn may never reopen.
Other businesses are facing the same roadblocks when it comes to rebuilding — The Topanga Ranch Motel, Wiley’s Bait and Tackle, Cholada Thai and Rosenthal Wine Bar.
[…]
Today, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is using the land, which is owned by California State Parks. They recently informed the destroyed businesses that their leases are cancelled and they can’t rebuild.
“Due to the catastrophic property loss associated with the Palisades Fire, DPR has regretfully determined that it will not continue to lease this site,” the letter the Reel Inn received read.
“We wanted to rebuild, remodel, expand from day one for thirty years. We thought that somebody from state parks, at some point, would go, ‘Look, we’re remodeling the whole place down there anyway. These guys have got good press. Why don’t we lean in with them and do something cool? And let’s do it rather sooner than later because it will make it look like we’re getting things going down here.’ And the phone, not only didn’t ring, but we got that letter two weeks ago,” said Andy Leonard, the owner of the Reel Inn.
h/t Joe
A timely reminder for western lawmakers: In Nepal, politicians ban social media use and citizens burn down parliament. Politicians flee by helicopter.
BREAKING NEWS: Nepal’s Finance Minister was just stripped of his clothes and chased into a river by angry protesters after they set the country’s parliament on fire.
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) September 9, 2025
That’s quite the laundry list.
Peter St Onge- Canada enters Recession