Canada’s job growth stalls, Big Six banks exceed earning expectations and Trump tariffs: Business and investing stories for the week of March 1

Getting caught up on a week that got away? Here’s your weekly digest of The Globe’s most essential business and investing stories, with insights and analysis on the biggest headlines, stock tips, personal finance strategies and more.

Trump’s new suite of tariffs, and U.S. trade representative on deal with Canada

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Days after U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to ramp up a new round of global tariffs to replace those struck down by the Supreme Court last week, lawyers said the White House is again using questionable legal grounds to justify its actions. They expect legal challenges to the tariffs, specifically, a new round of lawsuits to emerge in the coming weeks. The President said he will raise a retaliatory tariff from 10 per cent to 15 per cent on U.S. ​imports from all countries, the maximum level allowed under the law. Here’s how else Mr. Trump plans to continue his trade war with Canada after the Supreme Court ruling.

Meanwhile, officials from Canada and the U.S. plan to meet in the coming weeks in advance of a high-stakes review of the North American free-trade pact. Jamieson Greer, the U.S. Trade Representative, told U.S. television networks that U.S. and Canadian trade officials spoke on Wednesday and that the Trump administration was open to Canada’s ideas on how to reach an agreement. But he also said previously that Canada, like other countries, must also accept “protective tariffs” in a bid to reshore American industries.

Canadian job growth flatlines in 2025 on trade war, population slowdown

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New numbers from Statistics Canada show that Canada’s job growth stalled in 2025. The number of employees nationwide receiving pay and benefits from an employer fell by 28,300 last year, Statistics Canada reported on Thursday. Ontario, which bore the brunt of job cuts in manufacturing, registered a decline of 45,000. Manufacturing, warehousing and auto sectors have been hit especially hard by U.S. tariffs and the trade war – with companies cutting production plans and embarking on layoffs to manage cost pressures. Roughly 37,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in 2025, according to Thursday’s report.

Canada’s population slowdown is also playing a role in Canada’s sluggish job market, Vanmala Subramaniam reports. The population has started to decline because of major immigration policy changes that are aimed at reducing the number of temporary residents in the country.

Decoder: Vietnam is on track to overtake Canada as a source of U.S. imports

If the current trajectory holds, Vietnam could surpass Canada as a source of U.S. imports – despite facing an effective tariff rate four times higher than that of Canada. Last year, Vietnam’s exports to the U.S. soared 42 per cent to US$195-billion, while U.S.-bound shipments from Canada declined 7 per cent to US$382-billion. Vietnam was also one of the first countries to sign a trade deal with the U.S. last year.

Jason Kirby takes a look at the trade partnership between the two countries in the latest instalment of the Decoder series.

Canada’s major banks beat earnings expectations despite trade uncertainty

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Canada’s biggest banks capped a week of first-quarter earnings marked by a string of surging profits at the six largest lenders even as trade uncertainty looms. The Big Six banks – Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce – all reported earnings that beat analysts’ expectations.

Canada’s banks have been on similar journeys with restructuring their businesses to reduce costs and making their operations more efficient through technology and artificial intelligence, Stefanie Marotta reports. Meanwhile, market volatility has spurred activity in trading in capital markets and wealth management. The banks have largely been shrugging off concerns over geopolitical and trade tensions, and senior bankers say Canada’s attempts to bolster its economy and diversify its trade partners should provide opportunities for growth in the year ahead. Here’s a breakdown of the big banks’ first-quarter earnings.

How Trump’s tariffs have reshaped the global economy, in 11 charts

On March 4 last year, Mr. Trump hit Canada and Mexico with so-called “fentanyl tariffs” and raised them on China, part of his ill-fated use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose duties. Over the subsequent year, the global economy has been transformed by shapeshifting U.S. trade policies. Just not in the ways Mr. Trump envisioned. For example, Mr. Trump pledged to reverse the U.S. trade deficit, a key justification for his use of emergency tariffs. Instead, the U.S. posted its largest trade deficit on record in 2025.

From factory jobs and consumer prices to supply chains and trade flows, Jason Kirby and Matt Lundy take a visual look at how the global economy has changed in the past year, with 11 charts.

Get the rest of the questions from the weekly business and investing news quiz here, and prepare for the week ahead with The Globe’s investing calendar.