'Bad public policy': Reaction to Trump slapping new 50% tariffs on Canadian goods

Let us get down to business.President Trump says he is now going to impose 50 % tariffs on a range of Canadian goods.It is set to go into effect 30 days from now.The administration says this is in response to Canada's unfair discrimination against American cars, alcohol and dairy products.Meanwhile, the prime minister of Canada says the new tariffs are in direct violation of the trade agreement between the two countries and Mexico.Seth Harris joins us, former acting Labor Secretary under President Obama and Dan Nathan, co -founder of Risk Reversal, and a CNBC Fast Money contributor.

His latest podcast is out today.And I promise It is a great one.OK, Seth, what is going to be the broader economic impact of these tariffs, especially when Americans are already dealing with higher prices from the original tariffs, more importantly, from the war in Iran?

It's going to make a bad situation worse.Canada is the U .S.'s second biggest trading partner.Mexico is our first biggest trading partner.And now the president has said on a range of products that we are going to pay 50 percent or something less than that, more for Canadian goods.You know, the number you, Steph, you've done a great job covering the fact that the number one issue in America right now for working families, for voters generally, is affordability.

So don't listen to what Donald Trump says.Watch closely what he because of Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada.It is bad public policy.

But is Canada, Seth, engaging in unfair trade practices in any way, the way the president says they are?

Well, what they did was to retaliate against the United States for Donald Trump's first round of tariffs against them.You know, we're not supposed to be having these kinds of trade wars with our two biggest trading partners, Mexico and Canada.We have an agreement, the USMCA, that, by the way, was negotiated by Donald Trump.So this is him critiquing his own work and finding it wanting and now wanting to go to war with one at least go to economic war with or maybe literal war with one of our neighbors while he's negotiating with the other neighbor.You know, maybe this is some kind of four dimensional chess negotiating tactic where he thinks if he beats up on Canada, he'll soften them up for the negotiations.What he's done instead is sort of stiffen the spines of the Canadians against the United States made them angry, had Prime Minister Carney talking about, you know, partnerships with other trade partners around the world to reduce the dependence of Canada on the American economy.

That's not what we need right now.We need more integration with Mexico and Canada.We need to raise living standards in Mexico and in Latin America.That will help to deal with the immigration issue, but also result in our having better markets.And that's the goal of all of this.

No one has made Mark Carney look like this much of a badass, tough guy as Donald Trump has.I'm so naive that on Sunday when I saw these two at the World Cup, I'm like, oh my gosh, everything must be great.Clearly I was wrong.How do you see this playing out?

Yeah, I don't think he expected to be, you know, challenged by a strong leader from Canada.And that's what Mark Carney has actually emerged as.And you know, the thing that I'm most worried about is that tariff that they're putting on hockey sticks.I mean, that seems to be something that is going to be, it just seems very performative if you think about it.But this is back in April, right?You know, to talk about it was tariffs was a big one here.

And when you think about and Seth just said this, you know, the fact that they are going about this with our largest trading partners in our own hemisphere that are our allies and they have not gone as hard as they have with China.Now, you have to go all the way back to April 2025 and they put these big fentanyl tariffs and some other, you know, I guess punitive sort of one.But, you know, the stock market reacted to that.You remember the stock market dropped 20 percent, I want to say, in a matter of weeks.like that.

up.

Which is going to go back up.

Okay, new topic.A judge has put a two -week pause on the $110 billion Paramount Warner Brothers merger over concerns that it might violate antitrust laws.Do you think that this deal could actually get blocked, or this is just temporary, gumming things up, gonna delay it?

And it was obviously fairly persuasive as it relates to that.One other thing about this deal, when you talk aboutis it going to go through, there's what they call a ticking clause going in.If the deal is not done by September 30th, they basically have to pay shareholders at Warner another 25 cents per share.

Who have been paid a whole lot of money already.

Right, so like does this, you know, is there an opportunity for Netflix to get back in there?Maybe.

Okay, Seth, the federal government has already signed off on this deal.This was beloved by this White House.What would it take, what would it mean if the states win?What actually would things look like?

Well, you would have more competition in the entertainment market, which is what antitrust law exists to accomplish, right?The heart and soul of capitalism is competition, because that's what holds down prices and make sure that resources go to the right places, gives everybody a fair shot to succeed.When you have consolidation like this gigantic merger of two of the last five legacy studios in Hollywood, you reduce competition, you drive down wages, you have fewer opportunities, prices go up for consumers.It's a bad thing, and that's why we have the Clayton Antitrust Act.So, I don't think we should take too seriously the White House and the puppets at the Justice Department signing off on this deal, because You know, there's a lot of political influence involved in that.Larry Ellison was a part of the famous Ellison family.

His dad is very close with Trump.Larry Ellison himself is very close with Trump.They lobbied Trump to support them succeeding in this deal rather than Netflix succeeding in this deal.So I'm taking the lead, frankly, of the entertainment unions in Hollywood, all of whom are against this deal because they think it's going to be fewer opportunities, fewer jobs, lower wages, less diverse content, fewer voices in our entertainment infrastructure.It'll be interesting to see what this judge does.It would take a lot of courage for this judge to stand up and say, I'm going to permanently enjoin this deal.

We're going to have to see if that happens.