From EnergyNow.ca

By William Lacey

The biggest lesson from all this is that Canada must find a way to diversify its trade, especially when it comes to energy. We need to build more pipelines, we need to diversify our customer base

Canada and the United States are significant trade partners. In 2023 Canada exported US$438 billion to the United States while the United States exported US$353 billion to Canada, resulting in Canada having a trade surplus with the United States of US$85 Billion and thus the (uninformed) consternation when it comes to current talk south of the border.

Looking at the top exports from Canada, I drew an arbitrary line at the top 20 exports. This was not to say that businesses that do less than this are any less important, rather I just wanted to make a chart that was actually readable. As one would expect, energy and auto lead the way, accounting for 43% of all of our exports to the United States in 2023.

United Nations COMTRADE database

However, as with all countries, we also import a tremendous amount as well. Why? Because in simplified terms it is good to focus on that which you do best, and have in abundance, and leave other aspects to other countries that are good at other things. As such, automotive as well as machinery, nuclear reactors and boilers account for 31% of the trade flow going north into Canada in 2023.

United Nations COMTRADE database

When dealing with the border, it is important to remember that goods flow both ways, and the curious part as it pertains to oil is that despite Canada being awash in black gold, eastern Canadian refineries cannot access crude from the west, so Canada needs to export it to the US and re-import it to Canada. Weird. If only we had a pipeline that could do this…

I think it is also useful to look at the net balances, by category, to better understand the tos and fros of trade. Similar to previous charts, I made an arbitrary cut off line, this time at net exports exceeding US$1 billion in 2023. No real surprises here as energy dominates the landscape as Canada is a significant producer of oil and gas, and produces far more than it can consume internally and accounts for 76% of Canadian net exports to the United States.

United Nations COMTRADE database

In terms of net imports, the picture is more balanced, with the top two categories being machinery, nuclear, boilers and electrical, electronic equipment accounting for a significant portion of Canadian net imports (37%) from the United States.

United Nations COMTRADE database

Moreover, if you look at the breakdown of many of the components, and yes I am generalizing a bit, you will see that a lot of what we export are raw materials / base inputs, while what we import are value added finished products. As I have said many times, Canada is the proverbial resource bread basket that the rest of the world would crave to call its own.

If you exclude energy (mineral fuels, oils, distillation products) from the above analysis, you actually return to a more balanced trade picture between the two countries, and Canada actually is a small ($15 billion) net importer from the United States. Why do I think that is a fair way to look at things? The United States is a significant consumer of Canadian energy, and heavy oil in particular is something that Canada produces a lot of and is consumed by the complex refineries located in Minnesota, Indiana and in the U.S. Gulf Coast. If you want to learn more about this, I strongly encourage you to follow Rory Johnston as he does some brilliant deep dive analysis on this sort of topic and others.

At the end of the day, if the Trump administration really is about “fairness” in trade, we need calmer minds to prevail on this topic, as the data shows that the trade relationship is fair, and Canada is a valued (and economical) trade partner. I have my own suspicions that this issue extends beyond trade deficits and even beyond the issues he has also cited of illegal immigration and flows of fentanyl, and could even be as simple as “I am doing this, because I can, and I will do whatever I can to benefit my country.” Is this rational and fair? No.

The biggest lesson from all this is that Canada must find a way to diversify its trade, especially when it comes to energy. Canada’s need to build more pipelines, needs to diversify it’s customer base, and needs to start acting like a country that is looking out everyone, not just it’s own self interest.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

Organizers and attendees at this week’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, had to have been shocked at the new tone from the United States after four years of subservient obeisance from Joe Biden and his ineffective emissaries. In a wide-ranging speech via videoconference on Thursday, President Donald Trump essentially blew up the liberal world order consensus as it relates to the climate alarm agenda.

After putting the conference on notice that the United States would again become a sovereign nation with secure borders, Trump then turned to climate and energy policy. “I terminated the ridiculous and incredibly wasteful Green New Deal – I call it the Green New scam,” Trump began, “withdrew from the one-sided Paris climate Accord and ended the insane and costly electric vehicle mandate. We’re going to let people buy the car they want to buy.”

It was an opening salvo that flew directly in the face of remarks made earlier in the week by the likes of European Commission leader Ursula Von Der Leyen, John Kerry, Al Gore, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and many others. But Trump was far from done.

“I declared a national energy emergency to unlock the liquid gold under our feet and pave the way for rapid approvals of new energy infrastructure,” he informed the conference, adding, “The United States has the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth, and we’re going to use it.”

The message was crystal clear: The age of America conforming its energy and climate policies to fit the strictures of the liberal world order as formulated at international climate conferences organized by the WEF and the United Nations is over, at least for the next four years and possibly beyond that. It should be obvious to everyone by now that Trump intends to completely reverse the Biden Green New Deal agenda and implement policies designed to return the U.S. to the position of what he calls “energy dominance” achieved during Trump’s first presidency.

The net-zero fantasy goal has gone completely off the rails over the last two years as both the ESG and DEI philosophies fell into disrepute. The fading of those interrelated leftwing religions led major energy companies and the banking community alike to place heavier focus on mounting and financing major energy projects designed to enhance energy and national security.

Energy reality was already making a comeback before Trump emerged triumphant in the 2024 election. Despite these and other emerging realities, the WEF’s old guard came to Davos armed with the same old rhetoric.

Sec. Gen. Guterres, always eager to engage in laughable hyperbole, labeled the oil industry a “Frankenstein monster sparing nothing and no one” as it sows what he calls “climate chaos.”

Von Der Leyen’s bombast was no less absurd: “Heat waves across Asia. Floods from Brazil to Indonesia, from Africa to Europe, wildfires in Canada, Greece and California, hurricanes in the US and the Caribbean. Climate change is still on top of the global agenda,” she warned, sounding for all the world like Bill Murray and his fellow “Ghostbusters” in the famous “dogs and cats living together – mass hysteria!” scene from the 1984 film.

Kerry was somewhat more muted, likely due to the fact that he no longer holds any official role in representing U.S. interests. Gore essentially mailed it in, delivering virtually the same hyperbole-filled remarks he spewed to the 2024 conference.

But a pair of participants in a panel discussion held Wednesday were much more realistic.

Graham Allison, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, warned his audience not to underestimate the new president. “Trump has done something no person in the world has ever done before,” he said, adding, “A dead man, a dead politician has risen. This is the greatest comeback in political history of a politician.”

Longtime political columnist Walter Russel Mead added, “We need to also factor in not only who’s won, which is Trump, but who’s lost. Which is to say, us.”

He isn’t wrong, and the elitists who make up the liberal world order would do well to pay attention. Whether they like it or not, their world has changed.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.