- In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady has a cheat sheet on the new Canadian PM Mark Carney.
- The big story: It’s Trump’s 100th day in office.
- The markets: Eerie calm.
- Analyst notes from JPMorgan on Apple and tariffs, UBS on Trump and taxes, Goldman Sachs on equities, and Macquarie on Trump’s next 100 days.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. As Donald Trump hits his 100th day in office today, here’s one accomplishment he can clearly claim: swaying the outcome of Canada’s national election. “Trump loomed large in mobilizing Canadians around the Liberals,” Nik Nanos, a noted pollster and founder of Ottawa-based Nanos Research told me last night. “The Liberals were on their political deathbed in the opening of 2024. Under Mark Carney, they have formed another government.”
Here’s what business leaders should know about the new prime minister of Canada, where $2.5 billion in trade crosses the border every day.
Carney won on an anti-Trump platform. The former central banker entered the race to defend Canada against Trump’s tariffs and other threats, calling himself “useful in a crisis.” Although new to politics, he’s a familiar face in the corridors of power, having served as governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England. Faced with threats from the brash and boastful U.S. President, Canadians rejected a Trump-like candidate in favor of a more measured approach and a clear message that they won’t back down.
He understands the power of money. He’s talked about the structural risks of U.S. dollar dominance at Jackson Hole and understands the power of buying and selling U.S. Treasury Bonds, especially as a foreign holder of that debt.
He wants to diversify Canada’s trading relationships. When your closest ally is making enemies, there’s no better time to make friends. Along with having a close relationship with Britain, he has made moves to forge stronger ties with Europe and other regions.
He is committed to climate action and other causes not being discussed in Washington. A former U.N. special envoy for climate action and finance and the former head of impact investing at Brookfield Asset Management, Carney believes climate change is real and wants Canada to take the lead in developing green technologies.
He was combative in victory last night but is better known for his charm. “President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us, that will never, ever happen,” he said in his victory speech. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, we have to take care of each other.” But during his time as a central banker he was best-known as a smooth diplomatic operator who could forge relationships with anyone he needed to. In the long run, this is the version of Carney—not the fighter—that is likely to characterize his premiership.
More news below.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top news
It’s official: In Canada, the Liberal Party’s Mark Carney is the new prime minister. His party won 43.5% of the vote to the Conservatives’ 41.4%. See the results here.
Trump’s approval rating at his 100th day in office is at a historic low, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS. 41% of those surveyed approve, 59% disapprove. Historic trend data here.
More US consumers are buying groceries but paying later. A new Lending Tree survey of 2,000 U.S. adults found that a quarter have used buy-now, pay-later plans to cover their groceries. That’s up from 14% last year.
Europe is afraid Trump will ditch the Ukraine peace talks completely. The worry is Trump is “setting up a situation where he gives himself excuses to walk away and leave it to Ukraine and us [Europe] to fix,” a source told the FT.
Anti-AI deepfakes bill is passed. The president will be asked to sign a new bill criminalizing the publication of fake AI images and videos of people without their permission.
Pete Hegseth spends half his time investigating leaks. "If you look at a pie chart of the [defense] secretary's day, at this point, 50 percent of it is probably a leak investigation," according to Colin Carroll, a former adviser.
Sam Altman and Satya Nadella have argued over their partnership, the WSJ reports. Nadella’s Microsoft runs its own AI that competes with Altman’s OpenAI, and Altman is unhappy with the amount of computing power that Microsoft supplies him with.
Bessent puts de-escalation onus on China. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday that he believes it is “up to China to de-escalate” an ongoing trade war with the U.S. “because they sell five times more to us than we sell to them.” Despite that, Bessent noted that he generally wants escalation on both sides to stop.
China cancels U.S. food orders. China nixed a shipment of 12,000 tons of pork and reduced a recent order for soybeans to 1,800 tons—down from 72,800 tons the week before, the USDA said. American farmers are stressed, the NY Post reports.
How Starbucks’ new CFO plans to help CEO Brian Niccol. Starbucks’ new CFO Cathy Smith told Fortune she wants to move urgently but remain vigilant against risk to help CEO Brian Niccol bring the chain back to its coffeehouse roots. Read more about her approach here as she prepares to make her public debut as CFO during Starbucks’ earnings call later today.
The markets
- An eerie calm settled over global stock markets in the last 18 hours as most indexes reported only minor moves, with many of them trading flat. The VIX fear index has declined 22% in the last five days — suggesting investors are expecting less drama in front of them (as Trump delays and compromises on his tariff agenda) than they have behind them. The S&P 500 closed flat yesterday at 5,528.75. It remains down 6% YTD. Futures contracts on the index were up 0.21% this morning. The Nasdaq Composite was marginally negative, dragged down by Nvidia which lost 2%. Japan’s Topix was one of the biggest movers, up 0.86% today. Other Asian markets were largely flat this morning. The Stoxx Europe 600 was up 0.35% in early trading. Bitcoin has performed well recently and is now over $95K.
From the analysts
- JPMorgan on Apple and tariffs: “We estimate that iPhone pricing would need to increase by +30% for Apple to maintain margins around ~45% on iPhones specifically, which in our view is likely to have ramifications to demand,” per Samik Chatterjee et al.
- UBS on Trump and taxes: “U.S. President Trump suggested that trade tax revenues could finance an income tax cut for people earning less than USD 200,000 a year. This hints at an understanding that low-income households pay trade taxes, not foreigners. However, trade tariffs cannot replace income taxes—to suggest otherwise either raises questions of policy competence, or implies deficit-financed tax cuts. Neither is likely to shore up waning faith in the safety of the US dollar,” per Paul Donovan.
- Goldman Sachs on equities: “We continue to see equities as in a bear market, driven by low economic growth and high uncertainty (as well as elevated valuations in the US),” per Guillaume Jaisson et al.
- Macquarie on Trump’s next 100 days: “We think that the emphasis will have to shift out of political necessity, with new focus on (1) tariff negotiations and concessions, (2) deregulation, and (3) tax reform. … But there is no guarantee that changing the emphasis now will skirt 'stagflation,'” per Thierry Wizman and Gareth Barry.
Around the watercooler
Bitcoin climbs above $95,000 as Bitcoin ETFs rake in $3 billion last week by Catherine McGrath
PepsiCo CEO was grilled about GLP-1s by a 13-year-old on his Q1 conference call by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez
Exclusive: What If AI could design a jet engine—or even a starship? Google DeepMind and Airbus veterans just raised $23M with an eye on that future by Sharon Goldman
James Dyson, one of U.K.’s most celebrated business tycoons, thinks experienced hires are overrated by Prarthana Prakash
CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams and Jim Edwards.
