Trump and Canada, How ‘Resist and Unsubscribe’ Affects Scott’s Investments, and the Power of Focus

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1:52Scott Galloway:Welcome to Office Hours with Prof G. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to officehoursofprop2media.com. Again, that's officehoursofprop2media.com. Or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode. Our first question comes from Diane Brooks 1 on Instagram. They say, why do you think Trump is so focused on belittling Canada? um the honest answer is i don't know because they're close or because it's like that movie on wall street where charlie sheen asked michael douglas um why did you have to break this company and he goes because it was breakable so canada is our largest trading partner so i could see how he might zero in and all right he asked for a list of our biggest trading partners it's not china Mexico and Canada are actually tied.

2:48Scott Galloway:What was interesting is a colleague of mine at Stern, a guy named Pankaj Jemawat, he's an expert on trade. And his big insight, which I found fascinating, is that if you look all over the world, trade is a function of proximity. And that is 80, 90 % of the nations in the world, their biggest trading partner, they share a border with. And it makes sense. Logistically, it's just easier. You share cultures, oftentimes there's crossover in terms of language. And the same is true of us. Our two biggest trading partners are Mexico and Canada. He's also sort of zeroed in, I think incorrectly, on the notion that past trade deals have disadvantaged the U.S.

3:28Scott Galloway:And Canada was central to his push to replace NAFTA with the USMCA. He tends to highlight bilateral trade imbalances and sector-by-sector outcomes. And he frequently points to specific industries, especially things like, he likes the kind of tangible stuff, dairy, autos, lumber, steel, and aluminum, where he says Canadian policies or experts hurt U.S. producers. And these industries are typically more important with kind of what he perceives as the real America and people he feels are advantageous to him politically and tend to side with them, whether it's farmers or the manufacturing states and the industrial Midwest.

4:05Scott Galloway:So also, I wonder if he just sees it as a real estate play that, oh, it's our neighbor, let's buy their house. The problem is it's around all of this. It's just really fucking stupid. And that is we let's look at oil. We they they transfer to us oil and energy and shale in its Ross form. And we add value to it and we get a discount on it because of proximity, and we sell it at a much higher margin. They have manufacturing plants where they produce cars, parts go back and forth, they send them here, they send in timber, they send in timber, they send in oil, manufactured products, which tend to have operating margins of 10 to 20 points and be produced by companies that trade at a PE of, say, 8 to 15.

4:55Scott Galloway:And in exchange, We sell into them iPhones, chips, digital services, banking, things that have exceptionally high margins, sometimes 40 to 50 points of operating margins and are housed within companies that trade at a PE of, you know, 20 to 50. So in sum, if there's been any asymmetry in trade, it's been towards us. And that is for every dollar of trade we do with Canada, we import in a dollar worth of goods from Canada, right? So dollar into Canada of our shit, our iPhones, our chips, they put in a dollar of cars, timber, oil into the American market. But the dollar we sell into them is literally worth three to 10 times more to American shareholders or to the American company than the dollar, than the shareholder value they get from the dollar they sell into the U.S.

5:51Scott Galloway:If there's a trade imbalance or an asymmetry, it benefits us, full stop. But because it was such a mutually beneficial relationship and because there's been a level of trust that's been built up there by virtue of the fact that Canadians went into World War II before we did. They followed us into Iraq. They followed us into Afghanistan. We have fought shoulder to shoulder. Here's a fun fact. Canada, the Canadian-U.S. border, is the largest undefended border in the world. It's forced in most places. Just walk across it. Why? Because we trust each other. We haven't had to militarize it. So Canada fucked up.

6:24Scott Galloway:It trusted us. And 75 % of its exports come into the U.S. And I think that essentially Trump said, oh, we have leverage. which maybe they're our friends, but we have real power and I can bully them and push them around. And they kind of have to take whatever tariffs we send to them. And Prime Minister Carney has pushed back and said, look, this might be bad for us in the short term, but Canada is not going to be bullied. Anyways, his views on trade are just batshit crazy. I think he did get China right. He did highlight in his first administration that there was asymmetry with China, that they basically steal our IP, rip it off, and then sell us back the finished good for less gutting our industry.

7:10I think there was real validity there.

7:13Scott Galloway:By the way, since COVID, Chinese exports are up 40%, but its imports are at 1%. And some, China's basically decide, you can buy our ship, but we're not going to buy yours. And that means trade representatives all over the world need to unify to push back on China. But when the biggest consumer economy is sclerotic and declaring war on all these foreign nations, we can't pull together. And China's been effectively able to atomize us vis-a-vis Trump's stupid policies. According to Justin Trudeau, Trump's obsession may be due to Canada's significant supply of critical minerals. And then Paul Krugman's theory is that Trump hates Canada because it's a fundamentally decent place.

7:53Scott Galloway:That's an interesting theory. Trump, who nobody would describe as a decent person, dislikes and maybe even fears people who are, says Krugman. Hmm. That's some armchair psychology there. But it makes no sense. They will be hurt very badly. We will be hurt badly. The greatest unlock economically in terms of prosperity over the last 30, over the last 80 years, it's been NATO and the Marshall Plan and turning enemies into allies and help build up incredible trading partners that rest on rule of law and democracy. Japan and Germany, where U.S. laws and trading constructs became the operating system for 70 % of the world's GDP.

8:36Scott Galloway:And we've decided that we can take on the world with 27 % of the world's GDP, which makes abso-fucking-lutely no sense. And it's essentially fraying the operating system and the world order. That was the biggest innovation. The next was the middle class and what's fueled the middle class and unlocked unbelievable economic growth really since kind of the 90s in Clinton, it's been an embrace of global trade. And that is, it is hard on certain losers, certain industries that aren't competitive with global suppliers. But at the end of the day, if you can buy bananas for less money and then reinvest that additional consumer spending in other products that we're better at, what's happened over time is that we have traded or swapped out low-wage, non-competitive industries for higher wage, higher gross margin, higher shareholder value industries.

9:26Scott Galloway:So Dave Chappelle summarized it perfectly. We don't want to make Nikes. We want to wear them. The people assembling iPhones in China, I think it's 2 ,000 parts, make about 500 bucks a month,$6 ,000 a year. The average wage of an Apple employee in Cupertino is figuring out retail strategy, distribution, marketing, supply chain, lobbying, regulations, communications, investor relations. They average about, I think, 220 ,000 a year. So again, the notion somehow that manufacturing is going to come back, which I think was one of the primary objectives of these stupid trade wars, it's not happening.

10:00Scott Galloway:Also, folks, in terms of manufacturing, long-winded answer here, Americans have a fetish with it. And 80 % of Americans think that we need more manufacturing in America, but get this, only 20 % want to work in manufacturing. You can't bring your dog to the factory floor. and it has not, these tariffs have not in any way inspired a renaissance in manufacturing. What they have done is hurt some of our tourism that employs 12 million people in the tourism sector. So in sum, if these tariffs and a war on Canada make no sense economically or morally, trust your instincts. Question number two comes from MXML on Instagram.

10:37Scott Galloway:They say, how does your call to action to unsubscribing big tech impact your investment plans? Yeah, it's a tough one. So I've already unsubscribed from Uber, Amazon Prime. And last night I spent about two hours trying to unsubscribe from Paramount Plus and I still can't figure out I got a smiley or a sad mountain saying I'd unsubscribe. But unsubscribe from Uber and Amazon Prime. The really shocking thing was when I unsubscribed or I canceled my Uber account, it gives you this graphic that says this is how many times you've ordered from Uber Eats. I've ordered from Uber Eats, I think, 34 times.

11:09Scott Galloway:And then it said this is how many rides you've taken. I think I've been a member of Uber for about 10 years. Let me say, I love Uber. I think it's amazing. I love the little graphic of how my Cadillac Escalator, oh, it's around the corner. I hope he parks in the right spot. Oh, he's going to be here in two. I just absolutely love it. I think it's an amazing service. I haven't owned a car in four years, and it's something I've really enjoyed, not owning a car. All right. How many Uber rides have I taken in the last 10 years. 3 ,746. Okay. See above love Uber. I take Uber Lux. I like to think I'm a, you know, a big deal.

11:45I have some money and I always take Uber Lux.

11:48Scott Galloway:I did some analysis. That's approximately 370 rides a year. If you divide it evenly across the 10 years, most of my rides are in a midtown to do a meeting to the West village to go drinking or to an airport to go somewhere else. So my rides are expensive. The average Uber Lux ride when I joined in 2015 was 40 to 60 bucks. And this is the big tech playbook. They underprice, they consolidate the market with an incredible offering. And then once they've consolidated the market, they raise prices faster than inflation, which is what Uber has done. It has raised prices seven to 10 % a year, despite inflation going up about three to three and a half percent a year.

12:23Scott Galloway:The result is in 2025, the average price of an Uber Lux ride for years truly is somewhere between $80 and$120. So let's call it$100. So do the math. I have been spending, no joke,$35 ,000 a year on Uber. And before you say, yeah, privileged, yeah, guilty. And my point is, is that you don't realize how much money you're spending on these things because they raise their prices, you get used to them, and they make it frictionless such that it is so easy to spend money. Back to your question. I own stock in Apple and Amazon, and Amazon is my big tech stock pick of 2026. I have owned these stocks since 2009.

13:05Scott Galloway:So to sell them would incur an extraordinary capital gain. But at the same time, if I'm going to walk the walk, do I really want to finance these companies? Do I want to send a signal? So I am contemplating selling down or selling my positions in these companies. I've not done it yet because, and this is a good problem, these companies are up 10, 20x, meaning that basically the entire sale amount is going to be taxable. The last time I sold a lot of my shares was in 2016 when Trump got inaugurated. I had an emotional reaction and said, this guy's a fucking idiot. He's going to crash the economy.

13:38Scott Galloway:And I sold most of my stocks. And all that did was incur a tax liability. I bought back in six months later because the markets like deficit spending and irresponsible economic policies that rob money from the young and give it to the rich and corporations. And probably that emotional decision probably cost me 20 25 % of my net worth. So I try to be very careful about having an emotional reaction. At the same time, I need to walk the walk. Today, I think I'm going to unsubscribe from Amazon. I found out when I unsubscribed from Amazon Prime, it made the mistake of showing me all the shit I'm subscribed to there.

14:12Scott Galloway:I'm a member of Amazon One, its health thing. During COVID, I got COVID and I needed Paxlovid. And someone suggested joining Amazon One, the health thing. I haven't used it since to get Pax Livid. By the way, I thought it was a good service. So I'm going to unsubscribe from that today. And I've been doing commentary. But I'm going to unsubscribe or cancel something every day. I think it's amazing how many things you have that you didn't know you had. I found out I have three different ChatGPT accounts. I'm not even talking about canceling all of them, but I had a family meeting. Family meeting, I love those.

14:50Scott Galloway:That's basically my boys rolling their eyes and me lecturing at them. saying someday you'll respect me. Uh, anyways. And I said, we're going, we're going to cancel our streaming media. Uh, I told him about what I was doing and they're like, yeah, yeah, we're not. And they're like, no, we're not canceling our streaming media. I'm like, okay, I'll let you keep one. And of course the argument broke out, uh, uh, from going, we have six streaming media platforms. We're going to one. I'm not suggesting you give up everything, but if you're a subscriber to Anthropic or ChatGPT, pick one. Could you do without Amazon prime for a month?

15:23Scott Galloway:Could you take more cabs or could you eat local and not use Amazon grocery? I mean, there's just a ton of different subscription services you could do away with. And one, I think you're going to find you're going to save money. I think it hits these firms really, really hard. My next thing that'll be pretty easy is to unsubscribe from Apple TV. And by the way, these companies have increased their prices 20 to 40 percent just over the last two or three years. And the soft tissue of corporate America or the soft tissue of Trump is that he responds to the markets. The only time he has pulled back is not because of protests or the courts.

16:02Scott Galloway:The only time or, quote unquote, a co-equal branch of government. The only time he has pulled back is when interest rates spikes, when interest rates spike or the S &P goes down. What is our best shot at the S &P going down? simple. Go after the subscription services of the companies that represent 40 % of the S &P. And that is, if you cancel ChatGPT at 20 bucks a month or pro offering, that's$240, right? Okay, that's not a lot of money. But say you decided not to buy groceries. Kroger's trades at 0.3 times revenues. OpenAI trades at 40 times revenues. What does that mean? That means that every dollar that goes to ChatGPT results in about$130 in market value.

16:47Scott Galloway:Or put another way, put another way, you could buy$30 ,000 less groceries. The average home spends$6 ,000 on groceries, meaning five homes, American homes, could take all of their grocery spending down to zero and I guess plan gardens and figure out a way to survive. And it would have the same impact on the markets as one person canceling their chat GPT subscription. So I'm suggesting we focus on pulling the string that might have a real impact on the markets, which is the only thing that Trump listens to. But back to your original question, I am going to do something involving my stocks and my capital to try and send a signal to these companies and these financial institutions that they need to speak up before it is too late.

17:35Scott Galloway:And if you're interested in joining us, please go to resistandunsubscribe.com. Again, that's resistandunsubscribe.com. We've tried to make it really easy with links for you to investigate which big tech subscriptions you can easily cancel without much impact on your day-to-day life. We'll be right back after a quick break.

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21:32Scott Galloway:Welcome back. Question number three. Hi, Scott. I consider myself a super fan of yours. I buy all of your books. I was a member of Section for a couple of years, and I listen to your pod every week. My question is about the value of focusing on one project and how elastic one's focus should be. Due to my ambition in FOMO, I've spent most of my life managing or building multiple projects at the same time. A full-time career, a couple small businesses, investing, thought leadership, etc. I've had an epiphany that maybe my outcomes have been worse than if I had just focused on doing one of those things really well.

22:08I see you as someone who has many pots cooking at the same time, but it seems like they all use the same ingredients. For example, the content you create for Prof. View Media becomes a book, newsletter, and a section course. What are your thoughts on focus, how liberal one's focus should be, and if finding synergies between projects is essential to making them all work? Or maybe you think people should just have one successful project before expanding it to others. I appreciate your thoughts and thank you. Yeah, thanks very much for the question. So a secret weapon that most people don't take advantage of is focus.

22:40and that is, I'll give an example. I hate side hustles. There was a trend around side hustles.

22:45Scott Galloway:Everybody needs, all young people need a side hustle to make some extra money. If you're spending a lot of time on side hustles, it means you need to find a different main hustle. And if you look at the people who get promoted, if you get promoted every three years instead of every four years, you'll be making millions of dollars more or have millions of dollars more by the time you're 50 or 55. That's the difference between being a CEO and being a junior VP by the time you're 55. And the difference between me getting promoted every three years versus every four years is in the last 10%. And I love that saying, success is in the last 10%.

23:20And that's the person who works a little bit harder, is a little bit better, but also a little bit more focused.