{"id":2798,"date":"2018-03-29T10:26:04","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T14:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/Life-Insurance-Blog\/td-bank-boss-says-moves-toward-protectionism-troubling-amid-nafta-talks\/"},"modified":"2018-03-29T10:26:04","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T14:26:04","slug":"td-bank-boss-says-moves-toward-protectionism-troubling-amid-nafta-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2018\/03\/29\/td-bank-boss-says-moves-toward-protectionism-troubling-amid-nafta-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"TD Bank boss says moves toward protectionism \u2018troubling\u2019 amid NAFTA talks"},"content":{"rendered":"
The head of Toronto-Dominion Bank said Thursday that recent rumblings of protectionism are \u201ctroubling\u201d given the need to update the North American Free Trade Agreement.<\/p>\n

TD Bank President and Chief Executive Officer\u00a0Bharat Masrani said at his company\u2019s annual meeting of shareholders in Toronto that the overall impact of NAFTA has been \u201cvery positive,\u201d but that Canada, Mexico and the United States have undergone changes driven by technology and evolving customer preferences since the trade deal was implemented about 25 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result, there is a need to modernize this trade agreement, but not eliminate it,\u201d Masrani said. \u201cThat\u2019s why the rhetoric and recent moves toward protectionism is so troublesome. My hope is that the merits of this partnership prevail \u2014 so we can look for ways to make NAFTA even better \u2014 even stronger \u2014 for each country.\u201d<\/p>\n

TD,\u00a0the second-biggest Canadian bank by market cap, has a large business in the U.S. that generates more than a third of its earnings.<\/p>\n

But negotiations around NAFTA have yet to produce a new deal, and there is still a possibility that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump could impose steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico that they had previously been exempted from.\u00a0<\/p>\n

TD reported profits last year of more than $10.5 billion, an 18-per-cent increase over the previous year. The lender got off to a hot start in 2018 as well, reporting, arguably, the best first quarter of the big Canadian banks, with earnings of $2.4 billion despite taking a one-time, $453-million hit tied to tax reform in the United States.<\/p>\n

The recent cut to the corporate tax rate in the U.S. will ultimately have \u201ca positive effect\u201d on TD\u2019s earnings, the bank said in its first quarter results.\u00a0<\/p>\n

TD also said Wednesday that it planned to buy back up to 20 million of its shares, or about 1.1 per cent of its listed and outstanding common stock. The bank said it had previously repurchased 22.98 million shares under a normal course issuer bid that was announced in March 2017, at a total cost of $1.4 billion, or $60.78 per share.<\/p>\n

Masrani said the bank\u2019s performance in the first quarter made him feel \u201coptimistic\u201d about the year ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there are risks on the horizon,\u201d he added. \u201cAs just one example, trade wars are top-of-mind nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Financial Post<\/p>\n

\u2022 Email: gzochodne@nationalpost.com | Twitter: GeoffZochodne<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Life Insurance Blog<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The head of Toronto-Dominion Bank said Thursday that recent rumblings of protectionism are \u201ctroubling\u201d given the need to update the North American Free Trade Agreement. TD Bank President and Chief Executive Officer\u00a0Bharat Masrani said...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2798"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}