Thirty-four felony counts, six bankruptcies, two impeachments and one conviction. Donald Trump has won the 2024 U.S. election and will be the 47th president of the United States.

However, before the election results were announced, more than one-third of Canadians huddled around their televisions and live-streams to eagerly, or anxiously, watch the 50 states on the U.S. map flash red or blue.

Leger, a North American market research company, conducted a U.S. election poll with 1,562 Canadians aged 18 or older from Sept. 21 to Oct. 18. And while it may be easy to tune out of another country’s election or government, the results revealed that 70 per cent of Canadians were interested in the election.

Additionally, if Canadians could vote in this year’s U.S. election, 64 per cent would vote for Kamala Harris, 21 per cent would vote for Donald Trump and 15 per cent were split.

However, the election has come and gone, and it has put Trump in power as America’s next president. With that being said, there is a certain level of curiosity to see how Trump’s performance regarding climate change, immigration and trade relations will affect Canada.

Duane Bratt, a professor of policy studies at MRU, says that with Canada’s reliance on the U.S. market, the uncertainty between Canadians, and more specifically, Canadian students, will only grow.

“We’ve seen that when the economy is bad, it is tough for new graduates. We saw that in 2008-2009 with a global financial crisis. If you’re graduating, this is not good news,” Bratt says.

Trade relations and the economy

The morning after Trump’s re-election, he immediately announced a 10 per cent global tariff on all imported goods. This has been a threat throughout Trump’s 2024 campaign trail, and it is a threat that could have a significant negative impact on Canada’s economy.

According to Radio-Canada, there is potential for some trade negotiations between Ottawa and the U.S. However, if negotiations were to go sideways, there is the possibility of retaliation from Trump and the U.S., which could throw Canada into the deep end of a trade war.

From major corporations to small businesses—all who may hire fresh graduates—could be expected to be negatively impacted by the trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada.

“This is bad news for them as well. Even if those startups aren’t in a trade area, just the overall spillover effect of increased uncertainty, increased unemployment and reduction in GDP (gross domestic product) would affect them as well,” Bratt says.

Bratt says that tariffs are seen as Trump’s major signature economic policy. This idea can be dated back to the 1980s, where Trump had been a trade protectionist. According to Bratt, Trump has been pulling tariffs out of his playbook ever since. From the first Trump administration to the forced renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the threat of tariffs has come up time and time again.

“The problem with the tariff is that it overall will increase prices, either because the tariff increases the price artificially of the foreign good, or because consumers are now going to purchase the domestic good, which is now more expensive than the foreign good. And so what we have seen is that when tariffs are imposed, it increases prices, and it increases inflation for consumers,” Bratt says.

When asked about how tariffs may affect varying industries, Bratt says no job sector is safe for a future post-secondary graduate in Canada.

“Even if you are not in an industry that is trade-dependent, there’s going to be a spillover effect to your sector as well,” he says.

Immigration and work visa policies

While the economy is always looming in the back of everyone’s mind, Trump’s border control policies may also affect Canadian students and graduates looking for work opportunities in the U.S. Students looking to apply for work visas for U.S. internships and jobs are encouraged to act on it much sooner rather than later.

“It’s going to be very tough. The second pillar of his campaign was around border controls, and he’s talking about a mass deportation of anywhere between 10 and 15 million people,” Bratt says. “Even if you’re going through the process legally, Homeland Security and the rest of the immigration department is just going to be so fixated on deporting illegal immigration, it’s going to be tough to process legal immigration.”

What now?

With so many unknowns up in the air over the future of Canada’s economy and overall relationship with the U.S., it is tough to suggest how to prepare for such major potential shifts. For Bratt, he says that for future post-secondary graduates in Canada, there is unfortunately no right answer on how to handle the coming change. The only thing to do right now is hope.

“There’s just so much uncertainty. There’s no magic bullet here. I would just say, be resilient. Be resilient.”

Bella Coco is the News Editor for The Reflector 2024-2025. She aims to inform the public of current events and hold officials and organizations accountable in the media. Bella’s interests include her work as a writer (fiction or nonfiction), cinema, and music of all kinds.