McMaster professor’s paper, words ‘misused’ by Trump administration

A professor at McMaster University has gained a lot of attention after the Trump administration used a paper he co-authored to justify the tariff war.

The professor says that the administration missed the point of the paper.

Associate professor Pau Pujolas says Trump’s team had cited one of his papers twice this month – both times to back their tariff actions.

Pujolas said his paper outlines that trade wars are harmful for every country involved and his words are being misused.

“I got a message from my mentor saying, ‘you are famous and I don’t think you are gonna like it’,” said Pujolas.

In his 2024 paper, Trade Wars with Trade Deficits, Pujolas and his co-author were the first to show that trade deficits can be temptation for countries to start trade wars above and beyond what we are used to, and the Trump administration ran with that.

“And what the Trump administration is doing is saying, ‘see? we can be tempted so let’s start a trade war’,” said Pujolas.

But the point of the paper was somehow lost in all of the chaos.

Pujolas says while a country with a trade deficit – like the U.S. – might see minor gains from tariffs, in the end everyone loses in a trade war.

In this current trade war, Pujolas says the U.S. will not come out on top.

“Everyone loses from tariffs,” said Pujolas. “The overall gains, if they were to exist, they would be very small and they are certainly going to lose with the current set of tariffs and they are antagonizing their best friends and allies, which doesn’t make any sense.”

Back at the White House, the flip-flopping on tariffs continued Monday, with Trump suggesting he might temporarily exempt the auto industry from his hefty tariffs to give car makers time to adjust their supply chains.

“I’m looking at something to help some of the car companies with switching to parts that were made in Canada, Mexico and other places, and they need a little bit of time because they’re going to make them here, but they need a little bit of time, so I’m talking about things like that,” said Trump.

Canada is currently being hit by 25 per cent duties on some auto exports to the United States, and because of this Canada imposed 25 per cent tariffs on vehicles not compliant with the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement that are imported into Canada from the U.S.

When it comes to Canada’s response to these tariffs, Pujolas said instead of imposing reciprocal tariffs Canadians would be better off if the federal government got rid of inter-provincial trade barriers right here in our own country.

While Pujolas would love to have a crystal ball to see how this all plays out, he suspects if people keep losing their money and jobs, the republicans will have to back-track.

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