Canadian fears of a worsening U.S. economy under Trump have skyrocketed, poll suggests

A staggering 65 per cent of respondents expect the U.S. economy to worsen this year, the most pessimistic outlook since the 2009 global financial meltdown when 68 per cent expressed that view.

That’s up from 27 per cent who had such concerns in last year’s Pollara survey, which was conducted when Joe Biden was still in the White House.

“Even if Trump is not intentionally trying to hurt Canada, people feel that the decisions he makes could hurt the U.S. economy, which could have a negative impact here as well,” Dan Arnold, Pollara’s chief strategy officer, said Tuesday.

“So there’s a lot of potential ricochets from the uncertainty there that I think is creating this mood of anxiety in Canada right now,” he said.

That suggests the American president will loom as large in domestic Canadian politics this year as he did in 2025 when Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Doug Ford successfully used him as a foil in the federal and Ontario elections.

“Both Carney and Ford rode fear of Trump and tariffs to wins last year and that is still there,” said Arnold.

Fully 61 per cent believed Canada’s economy will worsen in 2026 and 59 per cent felt the employment situation would get worse. At the same time, 59 per cent said the global economy would worsen and 41 per cent had that fear for the stock market.

Pollara, which has been conducting the annual economic outlook survey for 31 years, found 79 per cent believe Canada is in recession, up from 70 per cent in the 2025 poll.

“It’s fair to say nobody judges the economy based on the economists’ definition of a recession, which is two quarters of negative growth,” noted Arnold.

“People judge it based on — not just are people losing their jobs — but is life getting more difficult, are things expensive, can I afford to live the life that I want to live?”

In 2024, as Canada was recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, 82 per cent believed the country was in recession. A year earlier, in 2023, it was 83 per cent.

Pollara surveyed 2,500 people across Canada Nov. 18-26 using a mix of the Dynata and Leger online panels.

While online panel samples cannot be assigned a margin of error, for comparison purposes, a random sample of this size would have one of plus or minus two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The firm found 57 per cent of respondents were at least moderately stressed about U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum, autos and lumber.

That compared to 67 per cent who were stressed about food and grocery prices, 56 per cent about housing expenses, 44 per cent about gasoline prices and 42 per cent about income taxes.

Some 43 per cent of Canadians expect their household income to fall behind this year — up from 40 per cent in 2025, but down from 46 per cent in 2024 and 50 per cent in 2023.

Similarly, 43 per cent believed they would keep pace financially — up from 42 per cent in 2025, 38 per cent in 2024 and 33 per cent in 2023.

Only seven per cent said they would “more than keep pace” this year, down from nine per cent in 2025 and eight per cent in 2024. In 2023, 10 per cent said they expected their household income to rise.