Canada-US Relations Set to Get Rockier, Former Trade Negotiator Verhuel Warns

Canada’s former chief trade negotiator, Steve Verheul, warned US-Canada relations will likely be “more precarious” before improving after last week’s trade talks collapse. New US tariffs took effect Saturday, prompting Prime Minister Mark Carney to announce retaliatory measures, raising near-term trade-friction risk for cross-border supply chains.

Analysis

This is more a volatility tax on North American manufacturing than a clean directional macro call. The first-order damage lands on cross-border supply chains with low pricing power — autos, machinery, building products, and transport — because tariffs force re-routing, higher inventory, and slower order conversion before any volume hit shows up in reported earnings. The second-order winner is domestic substitution: U.S.-based producers with protected capacity can widen spreads if the regime persists long enough for customers to re-source.

The key timing issue is that the next few sessions are headline-driven, but the 1-3 month catalyst is the exemption list and the scope of retaliation. If carve-outs stay narrow, Canadian beta and trade-sensitive industrials should underperform; if they broaden into autos, agriculture, or energy inputs, the earnings drag becomes real rather than political theater. Over 6-18 months, persistent friction pushes regionalization, which helps onshore capacity and critical-mineral themes but structurally lowers trade-intensity for rail, trucking, and industrial intermediates.

Consensus likely underestimates how much uncertainty itself suppresses capex and working capital efficiency even if tariff rates are eventually diluted. The contrarian setup is that the move may be overdone in the very near term, but only if talks restart quickly; otherwise fading the trade is premature. RAREF is interesting only as a policy-optionality name if this evolves into an explicit onshoring/critical minerals push; absent that, it is not yet an earnings story.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Short CTRYQ on any relief rally over the next 1-3 weeks; use a tight stop if exemptions expand or talks resume, because the trade is headline-sensitive before it is fundamentals-sensitive.
• Pair trade: long RAREF / short CTRYQ for 3-6 months as a small basket on supply-chain re-shoring optionality; this works best only if the policy shifts from tariffs to domestic industrial support.
• Buy near-dated downside protection on Canada exposure rather than outright shorting industrials if you need cleaner risk control; the main falsifier is a quick carve-out announcement or a negotiated pause.
• Avoid using DJT as the policy hedge unless tariff rhetoric starts moving polls or legislative odds; the stock is a noisy political proxy, not a direct beneficiary of trade escalation.