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The US would be forced to buy oil from geopolitical rivals such as Venezuela if it disrupted trade with Canada, the Foreign Minister of Ottawa warned.
Mélanie Joly told Financial Times the US president’s threat to impose a 25 percent tax on Canadian imports would hit “real people” if relations between the two countries went down to a trade war.
“We send oil with a discount which, after all, refined in Texas. If not US, it’s Venezuela,” Joly said, referring to heavy oil grades produced in Venezuela and Canada from which they hang Many American refineries.
“There is no other option on the table, and this administration does not want to work with Venezuela,” Joly said.
US President Donald Trump imposed comprehensive sanctions on Caracas during his first term at the White House.
Joly was in the US capital, chairing Canada’s last minute attempt to avoid the first new Trump commercial administration administration, with the president who again threatened Thursday to apply 25 percent tariffs in Canada and Mexico starting from February 1st.
The president said he was thinking of excluding oil imports from tariffs – reflecting US addiction by its neighbor on large energy supplies.
Despite increasing clay oil production in countries such as Texas, Canada makes up about one in every five barrels of oil consumed in the US and about 60 percent of imported raw.
Many American refineries depend on the type of heavy oil produced in Canada or Venezuela – not the lightest grades produced by the American clay industry.
Joly, who had traveled to Washington to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other senior US officials, said she had also warned lawmakers in Capitol Hill that trade tensions would hit “real people”, especially in Republican states.
“We don’t want it,” Joly said. “We want us to be in a winning position, and we think we can offer it.”
Otava and Mexico City have drafted both vengeful fee lists to issue against the US if Trump attracts the tariffs against them, people with knowledge of the matter told FT.
Canada’s Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson has pledged to “Tit-Tat” taxes for American goods such as steel and orange juice if Trump follows his threats.
Trump has begun repeated width against Canada in recent weeks, describing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a “governor” and claiming that the country should become the 51st US state.
Trump said in a speech earlier this month that an American annexation of Canada “would really be something” and he could use the “economic force” to do so.
Joly said the idea had not come out in any of her meetings with US officials. “Absolutely not,” she replied, when asked.
“We can be really good friends, best friends, but we will never be a state, nor colony, period,” she said.
Canada and Mexico have also tried to demonstrate Trump that they are securing their wide land borders with the US in response to his claims that drugs and migrants are illegally passing his country.
“At the border, I think we’re getting good attraction,” Joly said, adding that she would meet the Trump Tsar Tom Homan border on Friday.
Canada has pledged to spend $ 1 billion on border security, and has recently set up newly rented helicopters of Black Hawk Patrol, extra dogs and 60 border drones in response to Trump’s requests – as well as weapons concerns and undocumented migrants coming from the US.
Joly said: “We wanted to strengthen the border as well as on our side, because we are concerned with the course of illegal weapons coming from the US and the possible course of illegal migrants coming from the US”
Trump has threatened to expel millions of people without permanent legal status from the US, causing concern that some migrants will travel to Canada to seek refuge.
Joly said that while the US president had clearly linked his early 25 percent threat of border security tariffs, the US and Canada would review their broader trade relations, including the North American trade agreement signed by Trump During his latest administration, as part of a special process.
