The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that U.S. President Donald Trump's on-again, off-again "reciprocal" tariffs on America's trading partners and his increasingly nasty trade war with China have been triggering meltdowns in world markets, with oil taking a major hit. The Globe's Emma Graney writes that oil fell this week to 3-1/2-year lows. Prospects of a global recession have heaped worry on Canadian energy executives as they simultaneously try to navigate politics ahead of a federal election. Randy Ollenberger, head of oil and gas research at BMO Capital Markets, says: "I've been involved in the oil and gas sector since the mid-1980s, so I've seen quite a few of these cycles. One thing that makes this time different is it's artificial. We're talking about a recession being forced by a substantial policy change by one country, and we don't know how that's going to play out." Amid the worries over $60 (U.S.) oil, however, one upside is that the balance sheets of Canadian energy players are considered to be the strongest in decades.