Quote:
Originally Posted by Roughneck
So if he doesn’t put a tariff on Canadian oil, but puts tariffs on other things, it sounds like there’s a pretty potent lever the Feds could pull to ensure tens of millions of Americans start lobbying to do something about it.
It’s like NAFTA negotiations all over again.
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It's a potent lever in theory, but not in practice.
So far, this has been foreplay for a cute little tariff battle.
If we threaten US energy security, we are escalating it to a much more serious trade conflict. We didn't start the fight, but I don't think we are actually prepared to escalate it to that degree. The feds are not very smart, so we can't eliminate the possibility.
If they try to impose such a tax, there will be massive costs on the country in terms of federal cohesion. It will send Canada down a nasty, fragmented path. That will almost certainly get exacerbated because it would be easy to see how the feds would not treat every province's energy the same.
In other words the feds imposing an export tax on oil (or energy in general), would be a case of the medicine being far worse than the disease.