G7: Trade/Tariffs Provides Subtext For Two-Day G7 Foreign Ministerial In Canada
Trade and tariffs are likely to provide the subtext of a two-day G7 foreign ministerial meeting that gets underway in southern Ontario, Canada, today. Along with G7 regulars, the foreign ministers of Australia, Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa, and Ukraine will be in attendance.
- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s attendance will be the most high-profile trip by a Trump administration official to Canada since Trump terminated trade talks with Ottawa last month, claiming an advert funded by the provincial government of Ontario was aimed at influencing the outcome of a US Supreme Court case on Trump’s tariffs.
- Canadian Foreign Minister Anand said this week, “The work that Canada is doing is continuing to lead multilaterally in an era of a greater movement to protectionism and unilateralism. And in an era of economic and geopolitical volatility.”
- Anand is likely to use the meeting to improve the working relationship with Rubio. One potential route to renewing trade negotiations could be providing Washington with greater access to Canadian minerals, including rare earths. Recently, US President Donald Trump struck mineral agreements with Australia, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan; and pledged to expand rare earth processing operations with Japan and South Korea – moves aimed at addressing China's dominance of the global rare earth supply chain.
- “The expectations are quite low, but avoiding drama and fostering basic common ground on issues like Ukraine and Russia would be helpful” for Canada, an expert told WaPo.
- Ottawa may be bolstered by bullish comments from Trump in the Oval Office yesterday, suggesting that trade deals with India and Switzerland are close, two countries among the hardest hit by Trump’s tariffs.
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US: Trump Oval Office Announcement Underway Shortly
US President Donald Trump is shortly due to deliver an announcement in the White House Oval Office. LIVESTREAM The announcement is expected to relate to drug pricing and could follow a similar template to a recent pledge from Pfizer.
- The announcement will be Trump's first press remarks since a market-moving Truth Social statement earlier today in which Trump suggested calling off a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and raising tariffs on China in response to new export controls from Beijing on rare earths. See earlier bullets here and here.
RATINGS: Moody's Completes Periodic Review Of Belgium, No Rating Action
No ratings actions for Belgium from Moody's, which is quoted in a press release on Bloomberg: "Moody's Ratings (Moody's) has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Belgium and other ratings that are associated with this issuer. The review was conducted through a rating committee held on 2 October 2025 in which we reassessed the appropriateness of the ratings in the context of the relevant principal methodology(ies), and recent developments. This publication does not announce a credit rating action and is not an indication of whether or not a credit rating action is likely in the near future."
- There had been some speculation there could be a ratings action - MNI wrote Thursday: "* Moody's on Belgium (Current rating Aa3, Outlook Negative): We expect Moody's to maintain their current stance in the absence of 2026 budget details."
MACRO ANALYSIS: US Macro Week Ahead: No CPI, But Plenty Of Pre-Blackout FedSpeak
Below is the week’s data schedule, with MNI’s annotation of whether or not data will be postponed.
- As we went to press, the Fed announced that next week's Industrial Production data will be postponed (was due to be published next Friday Oct 17) as the data “incorporate a range of data from other government agencies, the publication of which has been delayed as a result of the federal government shutdown.”
- We won’t be getting September CPI as scheduled on Oct 15, but at least the BLS announced it will publish the data on Oct 24.
- As such next week we’ll be looking at some under-covered data points, including the Redbook weekly and Chicago Fed’s CARTS retail sales data (in lieu of the Census Bureau retail sales report), with a little more focus than usual on regional Fed manufacturing indices (NY, Philadelphia).
- Once again, the dearth of tier-one data leaves Fed commentary in focus ahead of the pre-FOMC blackout period: highlights for us are Philadelphia Fed President Paulson making her first comments on monetary policy on Monday since being appointed in the summer, while as always Chair Powell bears watching on Tuesday (we also hear from Bowman, Waller, Collins, Miran, Schmid, and Musalem).
- Additionally we get the latest Beige Book which was already key given the FOMC was already increasingly focused on anecdotal information as it attempts to navigate murky economic waters.
