A report published in early August put real numbers on a scenario that's since gone from a live risk to something closer to reality.

CUSMA hasn't formally collapsed, but the scenario the Canadian American Business Council commissioned Oxford Economics to model earlier this month has looked steadily more plausible since. If the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement breaks down entirely, the report projects Canada would lose roughly 102,000 jobs and the U.S. would lose about 214,000, relative to the status quo.

How this aged

At the time this report was published, the U.S. had declined to formally extend CUSMA on July 2, triggering the agreement's built-in 2026 review process without ending the deal outright. In the weeks since, negotiations have gone on to actually collapse and the tariffs the report was modelling around have since taken effect — moving this from a hypothetical scenario analysis to something closer to a live tracking document.

The other side of the ledger, revisited

The same report's upside case — roughly 98,000 additional Canadian jobs from a successful renegotiation — is worth holding onto as the realistic alternative still on the table, even after a rough few weeks. CUSMA's formal 16-year term still runs to 2036, and the three countries remain required to meet annually regardless of how any single round of talks goes.