TORONTO (AP) — The prime minister of Canada’s oil-rich province of Alberta said Thursday that Americans will pay much more for gas if President-elect Donald Trump imposes a 25% tariff on all Canadian products.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said in an interview with The Associated Press that U.S. refiners will have no choice but to raise gas prices. Alberta supplies 4.3 million barrels of oil per day to the United States.
“We would be responsible for about 25% of America’s energy needs,” Smith told the AP.
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According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels per day. It also produces about 13.2 million barrels daily domestically.
“They’re going to have to increase the price of gasoline by 25%,” Smith said. “Do Americans really want to pay an extra dollar per gallon for gasoline?”
“The president-elect has also spoken about his desire to keep things like fuel prices low,” she added.
Trump said the US is “subsidizing” Canada and threatening to impose tariffs on all Canadian goods. He also wants Canada to stem what he calls a flow of migrants and drugs into the U.S. — even though far fewer of them enter the U.S. from Canada than from Mexico, which Trump has also threatened.
About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports come from Canada. Alberta has about a trillion barrels of oil, of which 200 billion can be extracted.
Smith said the US faces a problem.
“If you don’t get it from Canada, there aren’t many good places where you can get it. You can get it from Venezuela, Iran or Iraq,” Smith said.
“I would humbly argue that Canada is a better friend and ally than any of these jurisdictions,” she added.
Smith also said Canada has a certain type of oil that U.S. refineries need. She said they just need to make sure there are more pipelines.
The sponsor of the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline pulled the plug on that controversial pipeline in 2021 after Canadian officials failed to convince President Joe Biden to reverse his revocation of the permit the day he took office.
Smith would like to get more pipelines approved during Trump’s term. She noted that the Alberta government took a billion-dollar hit when Keystone XL was closed as the government cut costs.
Smith also noted that Canada has crucial minerals that the U.S. needs, and that China bans the export of some minerals to the U.S
“The US has big ambitions to continue building out its AI data centers and critical minerals will be central to that,” Smith said. “Canada has virtually everything the Americans will need.”
Canada has 34 critical minerals and metals coveted by the Pentagon and is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the US.
Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian dollars ($2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border every day. Canada is the main export destination for 36 US states.
Smith also addressed the uncertainty in Ottawa, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau facing calls from within his own party to resign.
Trudeau, whose mandate expires next year, is expected to reshuffle his cabinet on Friday as the crisis deepens.
Smith also called for elections so that Canada would become stronger at the negotiating table with Trump.
“We don’t have a leader in our country who has a four-year mandate,” Smith said. “It would be much stronger to have a prime minister who says, ‘OK, we have four years to fight this out, you’re not going to get rid of me, so let’s talk turkey’.”
