Latest / Balance of Power / Canada Tariffs, Bessent's Remarks: BI Washington Policy Pulse (August 24th, 2026)

Transcript

Canada Tariffs, Bessent's Remarks: BI Washington Policy Pulse (August 24th, 2026) · Balance of Power

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: This is your weekly Washington policy Pulse, the Balance of
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Power Podcast. I'm Joe Matthew. Every Monday, Bloomberg Intelligence, senior
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: policy analyst and friend of the show, Nathan Dean shares
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: his weekly call on upcoming catalysts in the nation's capital.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Listen for the most recent and relevant policy research from
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: our team at Bloomberg Intelligence. Now with today's installment, here's
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Nathan Dean.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Washington Policy Post. My
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: name is Nathan Dean. I'm a senior policy analyst with
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence here in Washington, DC, and for some reason,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: my camera's a little burry. There we go. I want
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: to say thank you for attending the call. Thank you
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: to those of you who listen to us via the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Balance of Power podcast. We always appreciate you listening. Today
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: is August twenty fourth. Schools are back in session. My
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: seventh grader and fifth grader just went off to school
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: this morning. Seventh grader had a very early start six
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: forty eight for the bus. She's not used to that,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: which means I will probably beginning to work much earlier.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: So if you're in Europe. You want to chat on
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the early side, please let me know. So let's go
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: ahead and talk about what's driving the news cycle this week.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: And obviously, as I say this, it's ten o one am.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: We just saw a tweet or a social media posting
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: the President just a few minutes ago announcing new fifty
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: percent tariffs on automobiles from Canada. This is automobiles, automobile
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: motive parts. And the key thing to keep in mind
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: steal which we're already had fifty percent, but to keep
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: in mind that this doesn't take place until January first.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: So this goes into conjunction with the news that we
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: saw last week where the United States announced, due to
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the breakdown of a deal between the United States and Canada,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: that we would see new tariffs on approximately twenty billion
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: dollars worth of goods. We also saw Prime Minister Mark
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Kearney come back and say, okay, well, then if that's
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the case, then we are also going to have dollar
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: for dollar twenty percent tariffs or sorry, twenty billion dollars
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: worth of tariffs starting on September eighth. Now, President Trump
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: here said that nothing would go until January first, and
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg News as of this morning is reporting that there's
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: no desire or little desire on the Canadian side to
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: actually have negotiations ahead of the US midterms. So the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: most important thing for those of us who are watching
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: this call right now, in addition to the market impact,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: is will this go to the midterms, And if the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Canadian desire here is to really pressure voters in Ohio, Michigan, Maine, Alaska,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: four states that have pretty tight races at the moment
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and have significant impact or at least significant exposure to Canada,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: there's certainly interesting politics here to play now. I was
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: looking at the WSL election on the Bloomberg terminal. All
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: four of those races right now seem to be in
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: the Democratic camp, including Ohio, which is a little surprising
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to me. But again, we did this call on the
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: last week call where we went through state by state.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to repeat that, but certainly keep in
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: mind that President Trump will most likely escalate before we
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: get to the midterms. Premier Doug Ford in Ontario just
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: announced a few minutes ago that they should consider cutting
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: off electricity to the United States. That certainly would right
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: become a response from the President and had in the past.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: But again this we're going back into the days of
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: whether or not this is you know, President Trump's going
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: to back down or there's going to be negotiations, et cetera. Now,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: for what it's worth, President Trump is using Section three
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: three eight of the Trade Act to do these tariffs. Legally,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: they're probably going to be okay, So we're not anticipating
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: many lawsuits or at least a card case in this regards,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: but again, stay tuned, we're going to see what happens there. Okay.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Next up, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessont is going to give
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a press conference at one pm today. So if you're
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: listening to us on the Bounce of Power podcast at
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: this point, you can probably skip forward to the next
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: section because you're going to already know what he's talked about.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: But as of right now, this one o'clock press conference
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: is really going to have two focuses. First is going
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: to be on what the White House in the Treasury
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Department is calling economic Now, this is in response to Iran. Now,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: the question here is is that Secretary Besson has said
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: that they're going to expand sanctions on Iran. But the
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: question here is are they going to expand sanctions on
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Iran and third party countries that do business with Iran. Specifically, here,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I think the scenario is potentially Secretary Besson could call
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: out some Chinese banks that do work with Iran. Now
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure how far the Treasury Secretary is
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: going to go because just keep in mind President Trump
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: hasn't had his meeting with Chinese President Jijiping, and it
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: would be somewhat uncustomarily or uncustomary to announce these significant
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: sanctions on China ahead of this meeting. That could potentially
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: cause China to say, fine, we're not going to hold
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: this meeting. So again, I will see what happens at
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: one o'clock, but I really think it's going to be
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: one of those scenarios where you're just going to see
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: more threats of things that can happen, or maybe some
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: underlying pressure on some specific entities as opposed to something
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: that would rattle the markets. But again, stay tuned. Also
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: at one o'clock, President Sorry Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett most
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: likely field questions over the currently the treasure yields and
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the forty trillion dollars worth of US debt. The United
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: States is act accumulated. You know what it was reported
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: by CNBC over the weekend is that Secretary best and
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: could potentially use the one trillion dollar there's but nine
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty billion dollars worth in what's called the
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Treasury General Account to purchase more long term bonds to
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: try and get some of these yields to come down.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: You know, it's fully within his discretion. So if you're
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: looking at this from a process or procedure standpoint, does
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the Treasury Secretary can he go out there and use
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: nine hundred and fifty billion dollars to purchase these long
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: term bonds? The answer is yes. Now, what the Treasury
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: General Account is is think of it as the US
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: checking account. It's actually there most of the time. Most
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: of the time when we see it used, it's actually
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: during deat ceiling crisises. So when the dead ceiling is
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: already going into extraordinary measures, if you remember that, that's
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: when Treasury is actually using the Treasury General Account to
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: actually pay for those additional expenditures, and then the drawdown
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: of that is ultimately what hits the debt ceiling. So
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: in this scenario, if you presume that the dead ceiling
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: is not going to come back till next year. And look,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: if the Democrats take the House or Senate, chances are
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the dead ceiling at least a hiccup is going to
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: come back next year. The Treasury should be able to
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: replenish most of that, or at least a good portion
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: of the General Account between now and then. So I
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: don't think that if any you see any language or
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: any type of statement coming from the Treasury Secretary saying
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: we're going to draw down the general account, I don't
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: think that's going to have much impact on the debt ceiling.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: But again, we're going to get the specifics at one o'clock,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: so stay tuned on that. And then the final thing
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about this week is let's talk
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: about what had happened last week with the crypto meetings.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: So on Monday, the SEC published crypto regulation assets. So
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: I think I may have talked about this on the call,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: but I actually went back and read the proposal and
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: here's what essentially does is that allows a new digital
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: asset firm who wants to issue a token two large exemptions.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: There's one exemption where if you have a token market
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: value of up to five million dollars, you have four
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: years to essentially avoid IPO like disclosures registration with the
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: SEC very similar to those that you see in what's
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: known as regulation A, these regulations for disclosures, etc. On
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the crypto side. You largely can avoid that for four
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: years if the market value of your token is below
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: five million. Now if your token goes above five million,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: you have another exemption for twelve months that puts you
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: up to seventy five million. So essentially it allows you
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: to launch these tokens avoiding those IPO like disclosures and
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the registration requirements, so lowers the regulatory burden all that much.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Now that's about it. The SEC didn't go any further
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: than that, and so it's a very minor rule, actually,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: not all that big of a deal. Certainly is a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: good starting point if you're looking at trying to get
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: additional token adoption into traditional finance over the next few years,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: but it certainly wasn't anything like, you know, oh my god,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: now we have clarity, et cetera. That's essentially what the
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: proposal does. So that was on Monday. Then on Wednesday
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: you had the White House meeting. The White House meeting
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: was involved individuals from the crypto sector, from a little
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: bit of the traditional finance sector. The banks were not there.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: I li likened it to more of a pep rally
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: that you find it a homecoming match. President Trump stood
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: up there at the podium and said, we need to
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: get clarity through. We saw lots of executives from Brian
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Armstrong a coinbase saying, look, you've done great work. We
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: need to get clarity through. But who you didn't see
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: was the Senate Democrats. And this is where on clarity
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: is is that the negotiations that took place before August recess,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: they're not happening right now. To the best of our knowledge,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: nobody's negotiating over anything. And so unless they start negotiating
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: as we get closer to September fifteenth, suation doesn't change.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: So that meeting occurred. We did see some positive reaction
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: in crypto equities in response to that, but I think
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of that could have been just like held
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: nine volatility, etc. Because it really didn't change the meedle
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: all that much. And then the next day on Thursday,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: you had the CFTC's Innovation Advisory Committee meeting. This is
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: chaired by a CFTC chairman Mike sealik. Now. He also
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: gave an interview with Bloomberg TV's Tyler Kendall, where he
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: talked about look at the end of the days, I'm
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: going to paraphrase it is this, he said. If Congress
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't work, the CFTC is going to get job done.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: That's great. So if the CFTC doesn't have authority over
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: spot markets, they only have authority over fraud and anti manipulation.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: So the CFTC is sort of his hand is tied.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: So Billy get clarity until January twentieth, twenty twenty nine.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: But that's about it. So that's what's going on with
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the crypto world. I think things are going to quiet
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: down fairly much in that space for a few weeks
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: now until September fifteenth, So I promise to your shoulder call.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: That's where we're at today. Again, stay tuned for that
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: one o'clock press conference later today. President Trump has some
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: policy meetings later today Thursday, Friday. He's actually going to
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: be out of town. He's going out west for some fundraising.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: So I actually don't think it's going to be very
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: that big of a week policy wise, except for what
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen is talking about, and of course tariffs.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to stop there. I'm going to say
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: thank you very much for attending. We really appreciate it.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: If there's anything we can do to assist in the
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: in on, please don't hesitate to ask, and we will
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: talk soon. Thank you.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Our thanks to Nathan Dean, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior policy analyst,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: bringing you the latest installment of his weekly Washington Policy Pulse.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: For more from BI or to join this call live
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: each week, you can email Nathan at ndean at Bloomberg
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: dot net. That's nd Ea n at Bloomberg dot net.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Come back to the podcast later today for the latest
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: edition of Balance of Power
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: M HM.