- In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady talks to Canada’s minister of transport and internal trade Chrystia Freeland about preparing for the upcoming trade war.
- The big story: The White House accidentally leaked plans for a military strike on Yemen in a Signal group chat with the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.
- The markets: Risk on!
- Analyst notes from JPMorgan and EY on recession risk, Convera of the dollar, and Goldman Sachs on equities.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Coins2Day.
Good morning. Business leaders are bracing for tariffs, but they’re still struggling to figure out what exactly those will look like. President Trump’s 25% levy on goods from Canada and Mexico, for example, went into effect on March 4, only for him to pause it for many products two days later. That delay expires on April 2, but no matter what Trump decides, other countries are already making their own plans. To get a better sense of what kind of international environment CEOs should expect moving forward, I spoke with Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s minister of transport and internal trade, who joined us last week at the Coins2Day CEO Initiative dinner in New York.
Freeland is currently serving under Prime Minister Mark Carney, who just called a national election for April 28. But before that, she was deputy prime minister and minister of finance under Justin Trudeau, and helped negotiate the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Her break with Trudeau over what to do about Trump’s “grave” tariff threats prompted her to leave his cabinet in December, and ultimately helped spark his own resignation announcement in January.
Freeland told me that the tariff war against Canada has reinforced the urgency of removing interprovincial trade barriers. “We don’t have a single Canadian economy; we have 13 economies,” she said, estimating that getting rid of such divisions could add 4% to the country’s GDP. “We are determined,” she added. “I predict we will get it done by July 1,” which, of course, is Canada Day.
In that vein, the Canadian national government announced on March 21 that it would invest C$175 million over the next five years to support operations and maintenance of the Hudson Bay Railway and pre-development activities at the Port of Churchill in Northern Manitoba. The goal: to boost the trade infrastructure and transportation corridor through northern communities. The government also signed a contract for high-speed rail between Quebec City and Toronto.
Freeland emphasized that Canadians feel deeply betrayed by Trump’s trade policies and threats to annex the country as a 51st state, noting that those issues prompted the call for an election later this spring.
“President Trump has upended politics in our country,” she said. “The next prime minister of Canada will be elected based on Canadians’ perception of who can meet that challenge.”
“We want to have a good and respectful relationship. There is a real win-win possible, and it will be great to get back to it.”
More news below.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at [email protected]
Top news
White House leaks war plans on Signal. The editor-in-chief of The Atlantic was accidentally included in a Signal group chat with Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secrete Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Mike Waltz, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe, where they discussed upcoming plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen.
Congress is furious. "This is an outrageous national security breach and heads should roll," said Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), a member of the Armed Services Committee.
Europe is aghast. The chat revealed that Vance and Hegseth’s hatred for Europe’s “freeloading” is real and visceral. "I just hate bailing Europe out again," Vance said on the chat. "I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC," Hegseth replied. Fact check: The UK refueled the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, from which the raid was launched; the UK’s RAF also joined airstrikes on the Houthis in 2024.
Context: Bloomberg has a good backgrounder on why the U.S. Keeps bombing the Houthis.
Samsung co-CEO dies. Jong-Hee Han was the head of Samsung Electronics’ smartphone and consumer electronics business. He passed after suffering a heart attack at 63.
How much is Trump really worth? President Donald Trump’s media company and his embrace of crypto make his finances extra complicated. Reporters Paolo Confino and Leo Schwartz combed through documentation and spoke to experts to calculate how much the president is actually worth.
Trump’s revenge tour continues. The president removed Secret Service protection from former Biden DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. He has previously removed security service protection from Biden’s adult children, Anthony Fauci (ex-head of NIAID), former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, and ex-national security advisor John Bolton.
Recession indicator. Wall Street analysts surveyed by Deutsche Bank report a 43% average expectation of a recession following President Trump’s tariffs announcement on April 2. And almost a quarter of the 400 respondents place that chance at higher than 60% within the next year.
23andMe files for bankruptcy. Genetic testing company 23andMe filed for bankruptcy on Monday, and cofounder Anne Wojcicki will be stepping down as CEO. Reporter Lila MacLellan gives a timeline of the rise and fall of the company once worth $6 billion.
Coins2Day 500 Power Move. Freddie Mac (No. 36 on the Coins2Day 500) appointed Michael T. Hutchins to interim CEO, effective March 20. Hutchins previously served as president, and was interim CEO of the company from March 2024 to September 2024. Hutchins replaces former CEO Diana Reid, who was fired by the Trump administration last week.
Every Friday morning, the weekly Coins2Day 500 Power Moves column tracks Coins2Day 500 company C-suite shifts—see the most recent edition.
The markets
- The S&P 500 rose a very solid 1.76% yesterday to 5,767.57, leaving it only -1.94% YTD. The Nasdaq Composite was up 2.3%. Tesla jumped 12%. Strategy (née MicroStrategy), the “Bitcoin treasury company,” was up 10.4%. Indexes in Europe and Japan were up this morning although China was flat. Why are equities resuming their climb? The VIX fear index (volatility) holds a clue: It declined -9% yesterday and looks like it is heading back down to “normal” levels. Investors seem to be getting comfortable with heightened uncertainty, in other words.
From the analysts
- JPMorgan on recession risk: “We raised our assessment of the probability of a 2025 US/global recession to 40% [partially triggered by tariffs] … First and foremost, a large negative business sentiment shock could take hold as Trump administration actions and rhetoric flips the switch on the widely held view that it will maintain a business-supportive policy stance,” per Bruce Kasman et al.
- EY on recession risk: “Not long ago, US exceptionalism dominated the narrative—now, the mood has turned sharply pessimistic. What changed? The shift stems largely from worsening soft data, with private sector surveys turning negative in recent weeks due to broad based policy uncertainty & tariffs implementation,” per Gregory Daco.
- Convera of the dollar: “Traders in the currency market have turned bearish on the US dollar for the first time since 2016, with hedge funds and asset managers now net-short on the Greenback. This shift highlights growing concerns over trade policies, inflation risks, and uncertainty surrounding the Federal Reserve’s next steps,” per Boris Kovacevic.
- Goldman Sachs on equities: “Growth concerns have been driven by worries about tariffs and broader policy uncertainty, and tariffs create a lower growth vs. Higher inflation tradeoff that make it understandable that markets might be pricing some expectation that the Fed will be more constrained than it otherwise would be in the face of growth weakness,” per Vickie Chang.
Around the watercooler
In Congress, Republicans steer clear of investing in Trump Media or Tesla by Dave Levinthal
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says it’s fine not to know your career end goal—even well into your 60s by Lily Mae Lazarus
Snap’s CEO says he purposefully sets new hires up to fail on their first day on the job by Preston Fore
L’Oréal and other beauty giants are pleading with the EU to exclude American cosmetics from its tariff war by Prarthana Prakash
Klarna CEO defends DoorDash ‘eat now, pay later’ deal as critics slam ‘Collateralized DoorDash Obligations’ by Ryan Hogg
This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Joey Abrams and Jim Edwards.
Correction, March 31, 2025: A previous version of this newsletter misstated the new role of Michael T. Hutchins as CEO of Freddie Mac. He was appointed interim CEO.
