2025, March 8 - March 14

Continuation of Tariff Uncertainty

Photos of President Trump and Elon Musk have been blowing up in social media after rumors of Trump personally acquiring a Tesla automobile? The photos show the White House and the two standing in front of a red Tesla Model S and the new Cybertruck. So why did he do this? Tariffs threw uncertainty after cancellations, protests, and conflicts with other leaders, tanking the global markets and fear of another recession. One stock in particular, TSLA. has not been doing so well despite the hype of reaching all time highs this year. The tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel, is a huge drawback for Tesla because it uses the most amount of resources than any other EVs. The White House official website releases the official executive order on January 20th “to eliminate the electric vehicle mandate,” and getting rid of the incentives given by the government (charging, electricity, etc.). This is ultimately backfiring Tesla’s main sales tactic and it is evidently shown through the dips of 40% last night. Tesla has the largest EV charging network in the United States and the Biden administration gave out “Zero Emission Credits” to automakers and according to CNBC, Tesla had been receiving around $2.76 billion out of the $97.6 billion in total revenue. GLJ Research CEO Gordon Johnson stated, “over the life of Tesla, if you take out the credits, their cash flow is negative.” However, the $7,500 tax credit may be difficult as Congress needs to approve, which is included in the Inflation Reduction Act. Taking this away will only help Tesla, posted Elon Musk on X. This might be true because the Tesla company has taken the most amount of EV customers and less appeals on rival car companies means more sales for Tesla cars. Trump has definitely been seeing a not so great economy and one way he thought was a good marketing strategy for Tesla was to personally buy a Tesla car and as of Friday, the TSLA pumped up 2.66%.

These tariffs only make tensions worse as Trump said “Canada is going to be a very serious contender to be our 51st state.” and Prime Minister Justin Tradaeu responded “what he wants to to see is the collapse of the Canadian economy because that will make it easier to annex us… we will never be the 51st state.” A 25% tariff on Canadian made goods and 10% tariffs of Canadian based energy is launched and an official trade war has begun: blaming Canada for the United State’s fentanyl, Keystone pipeline and trade imbalance. This blows out all the past relationships with the brother nation as described as “closest friend” by the prime minister. The issue here is that the reasons for the tariffs do not apply to Canada specifically. According the a CNBC report, the US government would be profiting an additional $36 billion as well as consumers paying an average of $270 more than before. Canada and Mexico can possibly go into a recession as a result of these tariffs.