Patrick Leblond (he/il)

Trump is clearly a marketing man. Here’s the deal: one can pay the full price (tariff) or one can buy a annual membership to get the discounted price. If one buys the “gold” membership, then there’s no tariff. I wonder if a $1 trillion gets you to gold status.🤔

H/T to @carsjam.bsky.social @reuters.com piece doesn't mention #Canada but, as a member (UK too), should be in the EU-Asia #CPTPP alliance talk too. @prleblond.bsky.social has written about how Canada can be a strategic alternative bridge between Europe & Asia given ongoing Middle East instability.

Tariffs between Canada and the US have now been normalized. It’s just a matter of their levels. No one is talking about the USMCA and its renewal anymore. If Canada ends up making a deal that includes tariffs, then Trump’s coercive approach will have won the day.

Join us on November 10th for a presentation by Craig VanGrasstek, author of On Trade War, a new book that examines the history, theory and political economy of trade conflict from the ancient world to the present day. With @prleblond.bsky.social Learn more >>> www.cips-cepi.ca/event/book-t...

Rejoignez-nous le 10 novembre pour une présentation de Craig VanGrasstek, auteur de On Trade War, un nouvel ouvrage qui examine l’histoire, la théorie et l’économie politique des conflits commerciaux, de l’Antiquité à nos jours. Avec @prleblond.bsky.social >>> www.cepi-cips.ca/event/presen...

I’ve heard this before…

Yep, just to add even more color for how bad this is—there are tons of American made vehicles that are basically only exported to Canada because they’re too expensive for most consumers in Mexico and too big for consumers in Europe/Asia. One of endless reasons it was dumb to start this trade war.

And what about the new tariffs he imposed?

BREAKING NEWS FOR HONORARY CANADIANS - peacelovecanada.ca/collections/...

What have they done, or what do they plan to do, on trade policy that requires a pardon??

JUST POSTED: A Russian energy giant has secretly moved to acquire a position in a massive Alaska gas project. Its part of talks between Witkoff/Kushner & Putin. But CEO of US company resigns after learning of Russian money in the project. A wowzer of a story. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/u...

Tariff normalization in the U.S. Free trade in North America is over. Let’s not fool ourselves in thinking otherwise.

Trump giveth and Trump taketh away…

Does it mean that the exemptions are only in place until the mid-term elections? Is Canada now expected to drop its retaliatory tariffs? The sad reality here is that this news demonstrates the haphazard way that U.S. trade policy is being applied. It just add to the uncertainty that business faces.

I wouldn’t get my hopes up too much! And don’t forget, any “deal” involves tariffs on Canadian imports to the US. I’ll say it again: free trade in North America is dead!

Carney promised principles and pragmatism. In his new strategic partnership with Turkey, I see plenty of the latter but not much of the former. My interview earlier today: www.cbc.ca/player/play/...

Jared Kushner’s Hacked Phone Revealed His Secret Negotiations—Including More Than $700 Million In Transfers

Next Tuesday, we'll be joined by the team from the New North America Initiative (NNAI) from the School of Public Policy at @ucalgary.bsky.social, as they share a new framework for analyzing the Canada-U.S. relationship. @prleblond.bsky.social >>> www.cips-cepi.ca/event/the-no...

If there’s a war for Taiwan, I hope your current laptop is working, because you won’t be getting a new one for a while.

They're both just going to go gung-ho on scapegoating immigrants, and take this referendum as permisison to do so.

🌎 The North American Long Game: Data and Strategies from New Research for a New Approach to a New Relationship 📆 Tuesday, October 27 🕛 12:00pm - 1:30pm 🏛️ FSS 4004 @ucalgary.bsky.social @prleblond.bsky.social >>> www.cips-cepi.ca/event/the-no...

Sun and Trefler have new evidence to reach an intuitive conclusion: data policy is trade policy The impact of AI and cross-border data regulation on international trade in digital services cepr.org/voxeu/column...

Canadian steelmakers offset some US tariff pain with domestic demand reut.rs/4hTiiQk

For those who don’t live in Toronto and may not be aware of what’s happening here: toronto.citynews.ca/2026/10/15/e...

UK is prepared to align with EU tariffs on Chinese EVs, minister indicates www.politico.eu/article/uk-m...

Only weeks after Premier Doug Ford threatened to cut off electricity exports to the United States as retaliation in the ongoing trade war, Ontario has signed a contract to import electricity from New York state through the winter.

Talk of a "kill switch" for trade and a Franco-German paper that abandons WTO rules in favour of demanding one partner follows all your rules and the rest are discarded. This isn't serious trade policy. This is two governments utterly losing the plot.

Dominic LeBlanc: "President Trump's administration will be in office for two more years. And a great deal of the authority that he's using to apply these tariffs, of course, is executive authority, which won't be changed by the midterms."

This paper finds that U.S. tariffs on China significantly increased manufacturing output and employment in Mexico, particularly among multinational firms and in technology-intensive industries. spkl.io/633277VhFL #TradePolicy #Manufacturing

This is how you write a headline.

Une proposition concrète et détaillée de @justinmassie.bsky.social pour le volet défense lerubicon.org/donner-un-se...

Canada should be building up massive greenhouse capacity, relying on geothermal energy, across the country to grow our own food. Sovereignty means getting things right, and getting the hell away from reliance on the US for ALL THINGS.

These different incentives from standalone media owners vs. "common owners" like Benioff is the subject of one of my working papers www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/07aux...

This isn’t surprising. Trump is anti-Ukraine and he has always hated Zelensky. But he has been constrained by something (public opinion? GOP behind the scenes? Bureaucracy?) from fully throwing US power behind Putin. Can this change now? Tbh, I don’t know. What I do know is that…

If I built an AI lab and it went rogue and deleted all student loan information, I'm betting they'd suddenly figure out how to prosecute me.

Didn’t @upenn.edu do the same last year to Kariko for her RNA vaccine Nobel prize? Shame on @princeton.edu

Six months ago:

We are delighted to welcome to @global-affairs.bsky.social four new brilliant colleagues as nonresident fellows: @mcopelov.bsky.social, @prleblond.bsky.social, @mallory.techpolicy.social.ap.brid.gy, and Peter Trubowitz. globalaffairs.org/council-appo...

The Trump administration pressured diplomatic officials from the EU, Canada and Lithuania to pull out of an international conference on disinformation after organizers announced panels warning of the threat posed by American government officials

American "free speech defenders" pressure other people not to exercise their right to free speech www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Une possible amitié entre le gouvernement Ford et le Québec séparatiste de Paul St-Pierre Plamondon? Nos experts Tasha Kheiriddin, Fuyuki Kurasawa et Luc Turgeon analysent la situation. Marie-Lou St-Onge

This has been talked 2 death over the yrs, but the PQ promise of free trade w/ CDA (or US or EU) post-separation seems especially crazy in the geopolitical moment / desperate scramble for private investment. More likely to be a Brexit-style shock/isolation for QC, if on a smaller scale.

Thanks so much to @rebeccazandbergen.bsky.social for the invitation to join CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning to chat about HOW TO WIN A TRADE WAR and 🇨🇦 Canada 🇨🇦 !!! 🎙️ www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

I've been thinking over and over about what a colleague told me in the hall this week... she's older, Black, used to talking to people who disagree with her, indeed, she has sort of made intergroup dialogue her "other job" on campus. She is also pretty much entirely off-line.

Pourquoi à chaque fois qu’un chef politique se fait interroger devant les médias, il y a du monde derrière lui qui fait la potiche ou la plante verte ? C’est quoi ce dispositif ? On sait qu’ils sont soutenus par les membres de leur parti ! Ce truc est juste moche et ringard #élections #québec

Working-class Americans aren’t sold on tariffs. More working-class voters think tariffs have harmed American manufacturing (48%) than helped (36%), according to a new Cato trade survey. https://ow.ly/66zn50ZTh3c

After spending much of this week in Ottawa, a huge thanks to @davidwcochrane.bsky.social for the invitation to join CBC's Power & Politics to talk about the lessons for Canada from HOW TO WIN A TRADE WAR, my new book with @soumayakeynes.ft.com. Full video [YouTube]: youtu.be/xB7n1RIahj8?...