Canada's ambassador to the U.S. warned Wednesday that President Donald Trump's tariffs are driving up investment costs and discouraging business expansion, as new Federal Reserve research points to more price hikes for American consumers next year.
"Uncertainty increases your cost of capital," Ambassador Mark Wiseman said at the B20 summit, a gathering of global business leaders in Washington hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
"If you're going to build a new plant, add a new ship, spend money on R&D, the more certainty you have, the more likely you're going to do that," said Wiseman, a former BlackRock executive who became Canada's ambassador in February.
His warning comes as Washington and Ottawa struggle to resolve a tariff quarrel affecting one of the U.S.'s largest trading relationships. The two countries exchanged roughly $570 billion in goods during the first nine months of 2026, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. That's an increase from the same period in 2025, the first year of Trump's second term, but lower than the comparable nine months during the previous three years, when Joe Biden was president.
U.S. customs duties calculated on imports from Canada reached $10 billion in 2025, compared with $400 million in 2024, according to the Congressional Research Service.