Heather Exner-Pirot: Cutting off oil exports to spite Trump would cripple Canada

Ontario Premier Doug Ford responds to a question as Prime Minister Mark Carney looks on during the final news conference concluding the First Ministers meeting in Charlottetown, PEI Thursday July 23, 2026. Photo by TIM KROCHAK

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Doug Ford is mad, and he has every right to be. While his province suffered from wildfires and evacuations, a lineup of American politicians chose to criticize and politicize Ontario’s response, rather than offer to help. To add insult to injury, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a new set of unjustifiable tariffs on Monday that disproportionately harm Ontario’s economy.

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In response, at the Council of the Federation this week, the gathering of premiers and the Prime Minister in Charlottetown, Ford implied we should leverage our oil and potash to “dismantle” the U.S. and make them “feel the pain.”

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While an emotional reaction is understandable, weaponizing our resources in a trade war undermines our broader national interests. Canada’s highest and best purpose in the international system is not to use our energy and minerals for coercion; it is to constrain that kind of predatory behaviour from others.

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First, the practical details. Canada is indeed a massive exporter of oil to the United States, about four million barrels a day. No country in the world imports more oil from another than they do from us, and many American refineries require our kind of heavy oil.

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But more than vulnerability, this has created an interdependence. They must buy from us because we must sell to them, and we are irrevocably tied across the continent through a system of pipelines developed over decades. Canada could theoretically cut off oil and gas supplies to the U.S.A., but in practice it would mean we could no longer sell our most valuable export, and would fall into recession, and much of eastern Canada would be cut off as well. This mutually assured destruction is why energy exports have not been ensnared by tariffs in the first place.

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It is not only Canada and the United States that would be harmed. Disrupting this essential energy trade at a time when the world is staring down the barrel of three concurrent oil crises — Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, Houthis and the Bab-el-Mandab Strait, and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries — would tip an incredibly precarious situation into a full-blown crisis, with devastating economic impacts around the globe.

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There are also longer-term effects to consider. We are in a geopolitical era where economic coercion is rampant, and energy and critical minerals are being manipulated and weaponized for short term political gain. Export restrictions, blockades, tariffs, sanctions, and confiscations have become commonplace.

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Perhaps there is a temptation to play these same games, but it is not one Canada is culturally or institutionally suited for. Rather, Canada has an enormous opportunity to leverage its reputation as a trustworthy and reliable exporter of energy and resources to diversify its trading partners and grow its global market share. Supply chain security has real economic value today and will over the course of this decades-long commodity cycle. Ford’s threats, empty though they may be, introduce the possibility that Canada may withhold its resources for political ends. This is a damaging message to send and should go no further.