Alberta Premier Daniel Smith spoke about Canada’s investments in securing our southern border and his willingness to work with President Trump on the “Big Money Show.”
OTTAWA, Canada – President-elect Donald Trump said of Canada during his last Mar-a-Lago press conference: “We don’t need their cars. We don’t need their wood. We don’t need their dairy.” . That week, he reiterated the idea of annexing the U.S.’s northern neighbor and plans to impose “significant” and “substantial” tariffs on the country, which he said would amount to 25% on Canadian exports.
The United States relies on trade with Canada for 60% of its crude oil imports. Last July, production reached a record high of 4.3 million barrels per day.
“Who has the critical minerals? We have them,” Premier Doug Ford of Ontario, Canada’s largest province, said in an interview. “Who has the high-grade nickel that America needs for manufacturing and the military? We have it.”
The United States exported more than $322 billion in goods to Canada from January to November 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. During the same period, the United States imported more than $377 billion in goods from Canada, resulting in a trade deficit of nearly $55 billion.
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Then-President Trump (left) and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attend the NATO Summit held at the Globe Hotel in Watford, England, on December 4, 2019. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)/Getty Images)
President Trump has repeatedly mentioned U.S. aid to Canada, which he said at a recent Mar-a-Lago press conference ranges from $100 million to $100 billion to “about $200 billion a year.” is increasing.
Almost $2.7 billion worth of goods and services cross the Canada-U.S. border every day, making Canada the largest export destination for 36 U.S. states. Tyler Chamberlin, a professor of international business at the University of Ottawa, told FOX Business that Canada is highly dependent on its economic partnership, with 75 per cent of its exports going to the United States.
“Trade makes up 67 per cent of Canada’s economy,” he said. By comparison, foreign trade accounted for 25% of the U.S. gross domestic product (economy) in 2023, according to World Bank data.
“The proposed tariffs are a concern to Canadians because trade-related matters affect us more than they do in the United States,” Chamberlin said. “It would be the biggest blow in history,” he said, adding that Americans should also be concerned.
“U.S. industries that rely on supplies from Canada will have to raise the prices of their products because of the tariffs,” Chamberlin said.
Reuters recently reported that President Trump is considering using the International Economic Emergency Powers Act to declare a national economic emergency to justify imposing tariffs on Canada.
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President-elect Donald Trump announced Monday that he intends to impose significant tariffs on goods entering the United States from Canada, China and Mexico in response to illegal immigration and drugs crossing the border. (Alison Robert Poole/Getty Images/Getty Images)
The same day, Ontario’s premier proposed an idea that could thwart President Trump’s planned punitive measures against Canada. The Ford government announced Fortress am Can, which aims to achieve “energy security and power economic growth on both sides of the border” between the United States and Canada.
Energy accounts for about a third of Canada’s trade with the U.S. The plan includes streamlining approvals for pipelines and modular nuclear reactors large and small. But Ford told FOX Business that Ontario is also prepared to retaliate if the U.S. imposes sweeping tariffs, “which would actually send a message to the United States.”
He and other Canadian prime ministers are scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa next Wednesday to discuss next steps.
Prime Minister Trudeau told CNN on Friday that if Trump were to push through with tariffs, Canada would react in the same way it did a few years ago when Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum. “We responded by imposing tariffs on Heinz ketchup, Trump, bourbon, Harley-Davidson and other things that hurt American workers,” he explained.
CBC News reported last week that unnamed Canadian government officials said that orange juice made in Trump’s home state of Florida, as well as steel products made in key battleground states Michigan and Pennsylvania, were subject to retaliatory tariffs. It was reported that there is a possibility.
Energy exports could also be used as leverage to encourage the incoming Trump administration to impose tariffs on Canada.


An oil pump jack pumps oil in an oil field near Calgary, Alberta, Canada, on July 21, 2014. (Reuters/Todd Collor/File Photo/Reuters Photo)
Last month, Ontario’s premier threatened to cut off Ontario’s energy supplies to several U.S. states, including New York, Michigan and Minnesota. Ontario will provide electricity to 1.5 million U.S. homes in 2023, according to his spokeswoman Grace Lee.
Next month, Mr. Ford and his state and territory colleagues plan to travel to Washington, D.C., to meet with U.S. lawmakers in an effort to halt the tariffs.
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Alberta Premier Daniel Smith met with President Trump over the weekend.
“We had a friendly and constructive conversation in which I discussed the mutual importance of the U.S.-Canada energy relationship, particularly how hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs will be created by energy exports from Alberta. We were also able to make similar arguments with Canada, some of the incoming administration’s key allies, and their support for a strong energy and security relationship with Canada. I was encouraged by what I heard,” she shared on X.
Ahead of the meeting, Perrin Beatty, a former Canadian cabinet minister who recently served as president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said Prime Minister Trudeau would also seek support from Smith and Ford to express Canada’s position and “build a constituency.” He said he should have done the same thing. And we will ensure that Americans recognize how it is in their interests to maintain a strong relationship with Canada. ”
The Independent Expert Group on Canada-U.S. Relations, co-chaired by Beattie, has called for a “Canada first” response from President Trump, saying, “Canada cannot simply succumb to his every whim and demand.” It will not happen,” he said in a statement.
The group said Canada should instead press “the new administration to act in areas important to our country, such as curbing the flow of drugs and guns from the United States into Canada.”


An Air Canada plane flies in front of the downtown skyline and CN Tower as it lands at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, December 10, 2023. (Gary Hershawn/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Beyond tariffs, Canada also needs to prepare for the renegotiation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the 2020 successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Mr. Beatty, who served as a Cabinet member in the Progressive Conservative government led by former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and who helped develop the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the predecessor of NAFTA, under the Reagan administration, said that by this time next year, President Trump will: He said he is expected to do something. Notify Congress that you want to renegotiate the USMCA over the next 10 years.
Last October, President Trump told Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo that “once I take office,” he would notify Canada and Mexico of his “intent to invoke the six-year renegotiation clause of the USMCA that I put in place.” Ta. In the interview, he said, “Please give me a better deal.”
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Trucks line up on the Blue Water Bridge connecting Port Huron, Michigan, and Sarnia, Canada, on February 10, 2022 in Port Huron, Michigan. (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Beattie, a former Canadian foreign minister, said Trump’s reference to the trade imbalance between the U.S. and Canada was “primarily due to Canadian energy being sold to the U.S. at a discount to world prices.”
“Rather than the United States subsidizing Canada by purchasing this energy, Canada subsidizes the United States because our government has failed to develop the infrastructure to adequately serve global markets. “We’re doing it,” Beatty said.
Beatty, who also served as Canada’s Minister of Defence, noted that Canada and the United States are security partners in the North American Aerospace Defense Force and share a partnership in the defense industrial base. “When Trump damages our economy, he also damages our national security in the process,” Beatty said.
In his view, the past should guide the future.


Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. cars at the Canadian Pacific Railway Toronto Yard on Tuesday, August 20, 2024 in Toronto. (Cole Burston/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Mr. Beatty referred to the Tariff Act (commonly known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, passed by Congress in 1930), which implemented protectionist trade policies. Canada became the first country to respond by imposing new tariffs on 16 products, accounting for about 30% of U.S. exports to Canada.
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“Smoot Hawley didn’t cause the Great Depression,” Beatty said. “But it got longer and deeper.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t learn from history. There are no winners in trade wars, there are only losers,” he said.
Reuters contributed to this report.