A message from Rob Roach at ATB Economics:
As we try to get our bearings after the "liberation day" tariffs announced on April 2, it can be helpful to add some historical context.
To this end, the team at Yale's Budget Lab has modeled the effect of recent U.S. tariff announcements and published comparable data all the way back to 1790.
They found that the average effective U.S. tariff rate after incorporating all 2025 tariffs is now 22.4% — the highest since 1909 and much higher than the average of 1.8% set over the 2000-2024 period.
This highlights just how different Trump's trade policy is from the prevailing norm. The last time U.S. tariffs were this high, indoor plumbing was a luxury, Germany had an emperor and President Trump's mom wasn't born.
The Budget Lab also calculated that the 2025 tariffs will raise prices in the U.S. by 2.3% in the short run or about $3,800 per household.
Learn more about where this may lead in this edition of The Twenty-Four.
For more number-crunching on Alberta's economy, visit The Twenty-Four Seven by ATB.