Evidence of Americans' souring mood is everywhere you look. Even in the place you look for evidence: Google.

An unprecedented number of Americans are now googling the word "tariff," an issue of minimal interest to them during last year's presidential election.

There's an even scarier word they're now Googling: "recession," a search trend line that often, but not always, coincides with an economic contraction.

Signs are mounting of U.S. unease with President Donald Trump's North American trade war and it's surfacing in various places: from economic data, to grumbling businesses, to media coverage, and in tense exchanges at the White House.

On Tuesday, the daily White House briefing was dominated by questions about a trade war that has helped eliminate all stock-market gains since the Nov. 5 election.

The chief economist at Moody's is among those who see a surging likelihood of a U.S. recession — Mark Zandi puts it at 35 per cent, and some put it even higher.

It all depends, Zandi told CBC News, on whether Trump's tariff policies remain in place; whether they spread to other countries; and what the retaliation looks like.

"It's all negative. It's just a question of how negative," Zandi said of the current trade uncertainty. But if this continues, he said, "it would result in a full-out, knock-out, drag-out trade war that would result in a global recession."

And that's the context for why Trump has achieved a seemingly impossible feat: making mainstream American media care about trade.

It's unclear if the average Canadian fully grasps how little interest there usually is in trade news here, in part because the U.S. economy is less trade-dependent in general, and less reliant, specifically, on Canada as an export market.

But now everywhere in the news it's tariff, tariff, tariff. 

Networks have correspondents in Canada chronicling the cross-border rage. CNN segments are featuring an unhappy beer-maker in North Carolina, fretting about aluminum tariffs eroding his slim profit margins; others show worried Washington State apple exporters, and Jack Daniel's talking about being yanked from Canadian store shelves.

WATCH | Trump and Mark Carney haven't yet spoken: 

Trump responds to Ford's move to suspend electricity surcharge

U.S. President Donald Trump responds to Ontario Premier Doug Ford suspending his promise to add a 25 per cent surcharge on exports of electricity to some U.S. states after Ford and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick had a 'productive conversation about the economic relationship between the United States and Canada.'

Latest U.S. celebrity? Doug Ford

Doug Ford is now omnipresent on American TV. 

The Ontario premier is — atypically for a sub-national foreign leader — morphing into a household name here, with his high-voltage sabre-rattling and language that is also atypically blunt for a Canadian politician.

Of course, that attention carries downside risk. His short-lived taxing of electricity exports drew a counterthreat from Trump of even more tariffs. The White House even warned of grave consequences for Canada if it cut off electricity. 

While they both dialled it back, the U.S. is still adding 25 per cent steel and aluminum tariffs Wednesday, with untold consequences for numerous industries.

That uncertainty rippled through a meeting of international auto-parts makers, gathered at a conference in Washington.

"This stuff causes panic and paralysis," said Flavio Volpe, head of Canada's main auto-parts lobby group.  

"Here it appears [Trump] doesn't care. And he's trying to shake the markets. To what end? Nobody knows."

It's the subject of a lively debate among conservatives: whether Trump is in over his head and creating an avoidable mess, or whether he's got a viable plan in some 3D chess move. 

Theories about the latter include the obvious — that Trump wants companies to abandon foreign production and build factories in the U.S., which several major companies have already done.

But there's a less obvious theory that his supporters are peddling — that he actually wants to slow the economy, force lower interest rates, resulting in lower bond and U.S. debt payments.

Trump hasn't yet spoken to Carney, but his phone is 'always open,' White House rep says

In a White House briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said U.S. President Donald Trump has not yet spoken to prime minister-designate Mark Carney, before she went on to criticize Ontario's electricity export surcharge — imposed by Premier Doug Ford in the face of U.S. tariffs.

Trying to decipher Trump's endgame

Reflecting that split in the party, the right-leaning New York Post offered an unflattering front page showing a plummeting stock market, but a more flattering column on Trump's approach.

The conservative National Review, meanwhile, published an unequivocally scathing column titled, "Does Trump Know Why He Was Elected?"

It said: "President Trump is at risk of blowing his second term before it has hit the two-month mark. Go on. Shout at me for saying that. I don't care.

"The people who voted Donald Trump back into office wanted him to bring back 2019. They did not sign up for a trade war with Canada, the resurrection of [tariff-imposing former president] William McKinley, or an endless game of red light/green light that tanks [retirement plans]."

The White House is aggressively pushing back.

During a trade-dominated daily press briefing Tuesday, Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt cited new manufacturing jobs, and reports of several companies reshoring, from pharma giant Merck to Apple. 

The official White House line: Forget the reaction on Wall Street, which is temporary. Watch Main Street, and the long-term effect on U.S. jobs.

It led to an unusually personal exchange.   

An Associated Press reporter referred to tariffs as a tax hike on Americans. Leavitt insisted it's paid by the foreigner. Strictly speaking, the reporter was right, although foreign companies do sometimes wind up paying to avoid losing their U.S. customers.

But the reporter challenged her, asking: "I'm sorry — have you ever paid a tariff? Because I have." Leavitt expressed regret for letting the AP ask a question: "I think it's insulting that you're trying to test my knowledge of economics."

Here's what's hard to dispute: The economic data is souring. 

Business uncertainty is at historic highs. Consumer confidence has dropped. The S&P 500 has lost 10 per cent from its previous high, officially entering correction territory. Other indicators say a recession is a growing possibility. 

There are two issues, says economist and trade analyst Marcus Noland, a vice-president at the pro-trade Peterson Institute for International Economics.

One is the tariffs themselves. He said economists can estimate the impact. In fact, the Peterson Institute has, calculating that Trump's first batch of tariffs would shave a percentage point or two off the economies of Canada and Mexico, and a fraction of a point off the U.S. economy. Auto companies, in particular, will face devastating cost increases, he said.

Then there's the uncertainty — "The chaotic way it's being rolled out," said Noland. Trump's tariffs are the on-again, off-again, then slightly reduced kind. That's harder to model for. 

Regular people are starting to notice, he said. In his own life, he saw a sudden price jump for granola from a nut-free factory in Canada that he gets because of an allergy in the family. And there's no telling where it ends.

"The American economy is slowing," he said. "In the last week, people have started to become concerned that we could experience a recession."