Christopher Ragan, the founding director of McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy and former chair of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission put it this way: “Canada is in a set of negotiations with a party that appears to be unpredictable, volatile, so I don’t think anybody really knows what’s going to work here.”
Don Drummond, former chief economist for TD Bank, said if Canadians are willing to suffer the consequences, there are plenty of ways to punch back at the U.S., writes Peter Zimonjic at CBC News.
“You first strike the things they’ve said are the most important to them,” Drummond said. “They made it painfully clear that the only thing they want or need from Canada is oil, and maybe for a while electricity.
“We’ve had an export tax on oil and natural gas before and we could introduce that. We could also introduce quotas,” he said.
Canada’s leverage is significant when it comes to energy and fertilizer. In 2025 Canadian commodities accounted for 63% of oil imported into the U.S., 81.3% of imported electricity, almost 100% of imported natural gas and 80% of imported potash.