Canada Isn’t Ruling Out Energy and Minerals In Its Response to Trump’s Trade War

Canada’s energy minister is angry. Speaking to me while in Houston for CERAWeek, Jonathan Wilkinson described the phases of Canada’s reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and repeated taunting: shock, then hurt, and now anger. “We are resolute in our need to push back,” he says.

Wilkinson says that the anger shouldn’t influence his government’s decision making. But, at the same time, no option is off the table—including restrictions on energy and natural resources. Because of the highly-linked energy systems of the two countries, such a move could wreak significant havoc on the U.S. economy. “We would be foolish to take tools out of the toolbox,” he told me. “In the context where there's no negotiation around trying to find a resolution here, certainly, export tariffs on energy remain in that toolbox.”  

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There are many potential energy and climate change implications of the U.S.-initiated trade dispute. In the short term, Canada’s political conversation has been consumed by trade talks—squeezing out space for resolving some of the country’s thorny energy and climate policy debates. In the longer term, a sustained and intensified U.S.-Canada trade spat could lead to more investment in fossil fuel infrastructure in both countries. And, even under a new U.S. administration, this moment will not be forgotten, making it more difficult to build durable partnerships in areas like critical minerals—a key component of the energy transition.

“Under the new Prime Minister, Canada remains committed to the fight against climate change,” says Wilkinson, referring to the newly elected prime minister Mark Carney. But “some elements of the climate plan probably have become a little tougher in the context of working with the Trump Administration.”

Trump’s tariffs have shocked executives across the corporate world—and the energy industry is no exception. The sector is highly integrated, especially across the U.S.-Canada border. In the U.S. midwest, oil refineries run on crude that flows from Canada. In much of the northeast U.S., Canadian electricity helps keep the lights on. Meanwhile, Canada imports U.S. oil in its eastern provinces.

“The integrated nature of the two economies, and in particular of the energy economies… pulling them apart is almost impossible,” says Wilkinson. And yet, nonetheless, Wilkinson says his country will be looking away from the U.S. “Canadians' confidence in their ability to simply rely on the United States to the exclusion of the rest of the world has been shaken.”

A key area that may suffer is potential collaboration between the two countries on the critical minerals that will play an essential role in the energy transition. Canada has rich stores of lithium, cobalt, and nickel, among other resources, and had previously worked with the U.S. government to create a North American supply chain for batteries and other clean energy technologies. While Trump is no fan of the energy transition, he has homed in on critical minerals in his push to annex Greenland given the essential role the minerals play in manufacturing, defense, and advanced electronics. “Critical minerals in particular are a potentially useful tool, if we have to go there, given that the alternative sources of supply typically are going to be China, in some cases Russia,” Wilkinson said on March 12. “We're not there yet, and we prefer not to further escalate this at this point.”

A prolonged, deepened trade rift could push Canada to look more to Europe, South Korea, and Japan to help finance and purchase the product that comes with developing these resources. That would leave the U.S. at a disadvantage and reshape the centers of power in clean technologies.

At CERAWeek, an energy conference that draws the world’s biggest players in the industry, some executives chatted about the possibility that Canada might revive plans to build an oil pipeline from the country’s oil producing west to its eastern cities. This would reduce Canada’s reliance on U.S. oil in the east and make it easier to sell Canadian oil domestically. Wilkinson offered deep skepticism, telling me that such a project would face difficult economics and likely require government subsidy. Nonetheless, he said, it could be worth considering on national security grounds should the situation deteriorate further.

“Presently, there is no one proposing to build a pipeline,” he says. “You could argue that there is an energy security issue, and that is a legitimate conversation… but we should be looking at all available options.”

Like with much else tied to Trump Administration policy, it is hard to assess the exact climate implications of this trade rift. At the very least, it’s a distraction for Canada. When I first met Wilkinson last year, we had extensive conversations about the country’s carbon tax and engagement with the country’s Indigenous First Nations to build energy projects. Progress on those issues now feels miniscule in the scheme of things. But, more broadly, it provides a hint of what world may emerge in the wake of Trump’s wrecking ball: less collaboration and clean technology supply chains that don’t include the U.S.

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