Alberta premier Danielle Smith is rejecting calls to curtail or place surcharges on Canadian hydrocarbons exports to the US, proposing instead that Canada be "too friendly, kind and helpful to resist" in the long-time allies' renewed trade war.
Such a strategy would aim at "deescalating and doubling down on diplomacy with members of the US congress and governors from both parties" Smith said Wednesday, which would "give the American people and their leaders the time they need to reverse these terrible policies after the November midterms."
Smith's comments countered calls from the leader of the Alberta's official opposition party for the federal government to tax energy exports to the US as leverage in the trade dispute, following the breakdown in trade talks over the weekend.
Ontario premier Doug Ford — who briefly placed a tariff on its electricity exports to the US during the early rounds of the trade dispute in March 2025 — said Wednesday that "everything's on the table" in the current trade dispute, but any broader action would require coordination with other provinces. Quebec premier Christine Frechette, whose province provides hydropower throughout New England and New York, said earlier this week she did "not want to exclude anything in terms of measures."
Smith warned Wednesday that leveraging Canadian energy exports could incur "an equal and opposite and even more forceful reaction" from the US that could hurt the country significantly. That could include reciprocal tariffs or curtailments on US oil and gas and refined products exports to Canada, which "would bring the economies of Ontario and Quebec to a grinding halt."
The US could replace Canadian imports with heavy crude from Venezuela by reversing flows on existing pipelines, Smith said, which may mean losing the US as a customer "entirely and maybe forever".
The premier expressed support for expanding Alberta hydrocarbon flows to eastern Canada and recent federal government measures aimed at insulating Canadian firms from the impact of the trade dispute.
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney has previously downplayed the prospect of restricting energy exports to the US, but noted over the weekend that Canada provides the US with 85pc of its electricity imports, 95pc of its natural gas imports and 60pc of crude oil imports. "I don't think they want us to stop sending any of that," he said.
