By Erik Hertzberg<\/p>\n
(Bloomberg) \u2014 The Bank of Canada\u2019s governing council says recent U.S. actions on trade, foreign policy and central bank independence are making the world \u201cmore turbulent\u201d and escalating uncertainty.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In January, the bank held interest rates at 2.25% for a second consecutive meeting, citing mounting unpredictability as the main reason policymakers aren\u2019t sure whether the next policy move will be a hike or a cut.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the context of an unpredictable environment with little historical precedent, it was unusually difficult to effectively assign weights and probabilities to the various risks surrounding the outlook,\u201d the bank said in a summary of deliberations released Wednesday, reiterating \u201cit was difficult to predict the timing and direction of the next change in the policy rate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Governing council squarely pointed to Canada\u2019s southern neighbor as the most acute source of volatility \u2014 though it stopped short of mentioning U.S. President Donald Trump by name.<\/p>\n
The council listed examples of the Trump administration\u2019s international and trade policy as sources of unrest. For the first time, the deliberations of the central bank also included discussion of the president\u2019s attacks on the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecent geopolitical events \u2014 including in Venezuela, Iran and Greenland \u2014 and threats to the independence of the Federal Reserve had made the world more turbulent,\u201d the bank said. \u201cU.S. trade policy, increasingly used for geopolitical aims rather than economic ones, had become more unpredictable.\u201d<\/p>\n
In recent weeks, the bank has become more outspoken in its commentary on U.S. government actions. Governor Tiff Macklem was among the first major central bankers to offer his support to Jerome Powell, after the Fed chair warned that a U.S. Department of Justice investigation threatened the independence of the institution.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters in January, Macklem made some of his most definitive comments yet on the global economic consequences of Trump\u2019s tariff policy, saying the era of rules-based free trade with U.S. is over.<\/p>\n
Officials also reiterated Wednesday that the upcoming review of the free trade agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico is an \u201cimportant risk\u201d to the outlook that may keep businesses from deploying capital. While the council sees the review as a downside risk to economic growth, potential counter-tariffs and supply disruptions could also push inflation higher, they said.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that Trump is privately weighing an exit to the North American trade pact.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a92026 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n
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Bank of Canada<\/a> bloomberg<\/a> BoC<\/a> BoC minutes<\/a> Donald Trump<\/a> Editor’s pick<\/a> summary of deliberations<\/a> tariffs<\/a><\/p>\n Last modified: February 11, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Erik Hertzberg (Bloomberg) \u2014 The Bank of Canada\u2019s governing council says recent U.S. actions on trade, foreign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-470064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}