Bank of Canada must get comfortable with the unknown as long as Trump is in charge [Video]

In two straight decisions, the Bank of Canada has said it was leaving its key overnight lending rate unchanged as it gains “more information on U.S. trade policy and its impacts.”

The problem is that since Donald Trump reclaimed the presidency, gaining more information about U.S. trade policy has been nearly impossible. In fact, it’s now abundantly clear that uncertainty is a core part of the administration’s plan.

It’s hard to know from one day to the next what Trump is going to do.

“We still do not know what tariffs will be imposed, whether they’ll be reduced or escalated, or how long all of this will last,” Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem said back in April. Those remarks could just as well have come this week.

Since then, Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Trump in Washington. Carney called those talks “wide-ranging” and “constructive.”

The meeting was heralded as a sort of reset of Canada-U.S. relations and the beginning of a path out of the trade …