Trudeau’s Canada Loses 71,000 Jobs, Most Since Financial Crisis, Unemployment Jumps to 5.9%

It looks like Donald Trump got the last laugh.

A few days after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught having a laugh at the expense of the U.S. president, the U.S. economy was reported to have added 266,000 jobs in November while Canada lost 71,200 jobs, the biggest monthly loss since the financial crisis, according to Canada’s national statistics agency.

Unemployment in the U.S. fell to 3.5 percent, returning to the 50-year low hit earlier this year. Canadian unemployment jumped to 5.9 percent from 5.5 percent a month earlier.

The diverging economies show that the U.S. has better withstood the global economic slowdown than its neighbor.

The divergence also undermines the notion that Trump’s tariffs have weighed heavily on the U.S. economy. Canada has not imposed tariffs on China, yet its economy is underperforming.

Economists badly over-estimated the strength of the Canadian economy, forecasting a gain of 10,000 jobs and for the unemployment rate to hold steady at 5.5 percent.

Manufacturing jobs fell by 27,500 in Canada but rose by 54,000 in the U.S.