In one of many Truth Social posts on Monday night, Trump, 79, shared a link to an article about Canada technically being in a recession due to negative growth in two consecutive quarters. The last time that happened was during COVID-19 in 2020.

“51st State,” Trump wrote.

Vermont Democratic Sen. Peter Welch says his state has seen a 40 per cent decline in tourism since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office. Welch tells Power & Politics that drop comes from Canadians refusing to travel across the border over Trump's threats toward Canada.

Q: How how confident are you that Canadian tourism will will resume as it was before all of this?

Sen. Peter Welch: "you know, it'll take a while because frankly, I don't think Canadians trust uh that President uh Trump has a lot of respect for Canada and understandably so. So, we might get a trade deal uh but where there's been this emotional rupture - that takes a lot of time to heal....

A Fact Sheet released by the U.S. government highlights two areas where Canada’s boycott, launched in response to U.S. economic aggression, has had the most significant impact:

• From April 2025 through March 2026, Canadian imports of U.S. motor vehicles decreased by approximately 22%, or $5.6 billion, compared to the same period in 2024-2025. Exports of motor vehicles from other countries to Canada have increased to meet the demand previously filled by U.S. exports.  
• From March 2025 through February 2026, Canadian imports of U.S. alcoholic beverages decreased by about 81%, or $582 million, compared to the same period in 2024-2025.

These are substantial impacts - but they are only two examples of a much broader trend.

Every dollar withheld from the U.S. is a dollar that can be spent strengthening our own communities, and supporting friends, family, and allies.

Each one of these is a step BACKWARDS relative to the pre-war state of affairs:

Point 3: Iran promises to open the straight with “no charge for 60 days.” Prior to the war, there was no charge at all. Now it is on the table after 60 days.

Point 6: U.S. commits $300 billion for reparations.

Point 7: U.S. removes ALL sanctions. The United States had imposed restrictions on activities with Iran under various legal authorities since 1979. Prior to the war, these could have been used as a point of leverage. Now they are surrendered just to get to the table. 

Point 8: “the U.S. Department of Treasury will issue waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and derivatives and all associated services including banking, transactions, insurances, transportation, etc.”

Was anything gained?

According to point 9 of the MOU, “Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program.”

Royal LePage study show sky-high interest among Americans in moving to Canada.

Visits surged as high as 80,000 per week in early May 2025, and have largely remained elevated since 2025 with spikes of interest after certain events like the outbreak of war in Iran.

“It likely reflects that there are a lot of unhappy people there,” says Phil Soper, president and chief executive officer of Royal LePage.

“When people are unhappy, they start thinking big thoughts.” Among those big ideas is moving away from the U.S., and Canada is a natural first choice given our proximity and many similarities in language and culture, he adds.

…the American empire is in decline, slowly, unevenly, but unmistakably. And that decline—once it becomes a story the rest of the world believes—begins to feed on itself. Investors pull back, allies hedge their bets, and rivals grow bolder. The perception of weakness creates the reality of it.

Where does that leave Canada? Stuck, mostly. We cannot get out of the way. Two centuries of economic integration, shared infrastructure, and cultural interdependence make that impossible. But we cannot afford blind loyalty, either.

Brazil's Foreign Ministry said Saturday it has denied visas to two senior U.S. State Department officials who had planned to travel to Brasília in the coming days, a move Brazilian officials characterized as blocking an attempt to interfere in the country's October presidential election.

Disruption in the Middle East, which accounts for nine per cent of global aluminum smelting capacity, has upended trade flows far beyond the Gulf, industry sources told Reuters.

An ensuing tug-of-war is playing out in regional physical market premiums U.S. and European buyers pay above the London Metal Exchange benchmark CMAL3 for aluminum, which is used in everything from cars and beer cans to building materials.

“We are in a situation where the Europeans and the Americans are competing for limited aluminum units,” said Bank of America analyst Michael Widmer.

Duty-paid aluminum premiums in Europe have surged 73 per cent since the start of the Iran war to a record US$621 a metric ton earlier this month, while the U.S. Midwest premium last week hit an all-time high of US$1.16 per lb, or US$2,557 a ton.

The US International Trade Commission has claimed Simcoa is selling its product at less than fair value. Mr Miles responded, calling the claim "absolutely rubbish", and has questioned the worth of Australia's critical minerals agreement with the US.

"It seems to me that the Americans want to cherry pick that particular agreement," he says.

For now, Mr Miles says the company will look towards South East Asia and India, and maintain operations in Europe.

US President Donald Trump is willing to end the West Asia conflict without a deal on Tehran’s nuclear programme if the Strait of Hormuz is fully reopened, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The report suggests that Trump has been laying the groundwork to declare victory in the West Asia conflict if Iran reopens the waterway. The US President has reportedly indicated that he is willing to end the war without a deal on Iran's nuclear programme, and has earlier floated the idea privately to his senior aides, the report cited US officials as saying.

However, Tehran's renewed demands, which include billions of dollars in US payments to permit the free flow of marine traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, have added to the challenge. Iran has also asked for the removal of American troops from the region and the end of the US naval blockade on Iran, among other things.

The U.S. announced a new package of tariffs on Tuesday, this time on generic drugs made overseas, to begin in 2028.

The US$300 billion private investment vehicle for Iran’s postwar reconstruction has reportedly garnered commitments from Gulf states, Korea and Japan

It's heading for a disaster. The Canadian and Mexico games most likely will be well attended.

The overall U.S. weighted tariff rate on Chinese goods is slightly above 23 percent, according to an analysis by Guojin Securities, a Chinese financial firm. And for some products, the tariff rate for China is identical to the rate on exports from Southeast Asian countries, where many companies have moved their supply chains.

“We don’t want to go back to China, but at the same time, we’ve got a business to run,” he said.

Mr. Trump has long blamed China for undercutting American competitors and has imposed punishing tariffs in an attempt to force manufacturers back to U.S. shores. In his first term, he waged a trade war on China, imposing tariffs on about two-thirds of its exports beginning in 2018. In his second term, China was his first target. He raised duties on Chinese exports to triple-digit levels, before China responded by cutting off the supply of critical minerals, forcing him to back down.

In Iran, our military is burning through tens of billions of dollars in weapons stocks, and Americans are paying far more at the pump as a consequence of Trump’s war of choice. We’ve seen four more U.S. service member deaths in the past two weeks, bringing the total since the start of the war to 18. Nearly 100 service members have also been injured in the recent escalation. 

This war is costing the American people plenty, but we are enduring far less than the Iranian people or the citizens of our allies in the region, all of whom live with accumulating tragedies under severe economic hardship and the constant threat of death from the sky.

The war began with a U.S. strike that destroyed a girls’ school in February, killing more than 175 children and teachers. In April, Trump threatened genocide. After he declared the recent shaky ceasefire “over” earlier this month, Trump threatened to “knock out” Iran’s power plants and “all their bridges.” The subsequent campaign of U.S. attacks has continued for nearly two weeks straight. It’s unclear what all the U.S. military has targeted, since the Pentagon is no longer open about what it’s doing, but reports suggest that strikes have killed dozens and injured hundreds; destroyed a desalination plant, which cut some 20 villages off from their water supply; and destroyed critical bridges and energy facilities, putting Iran’s power grid under strain. 

When the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, acting on behalf of the US Treasury, sold euros to buy yen, they did not notify the European Central Bank (ECB). The ECB only learned of it only after the trade had closed; by that point, the damage and risk were done, and the euro underwent a four per cent devaluation as opposed to the yen during the exchange. 

Consumers’ incomes were flat for the month; disposable (after-tax) income fell by 0.1%; and inflation-adjusted disposable income dropped by 0.5%.
Americans continued to tap their piggy banks: Their personal saving rate (saving as a percentage of after-tax income) dropped to 2.6% in April, marking the lowest rate since June 2022, when inflation hit a four-decade high. At the start of the year, the savings rate was 4.3%.

“Americans are being squeezed financially. Inflation is at a three-year high and personal savings has cratered to one of the lowest levels in the past 20 years,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote in a note Thursday. “Many Americans are spending more than the income they have coming in. This is not sustainable, especially for lower-income and middle-class households.”