Trudeau created an advisory council on relations with the United States in preparation for Trump’s arrival to power
The Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeauannounced this Thursday the creation of the Council on Relations between Canada and the United States, made up of business, union and political leaders, which will advise the Government on bilateral relations issues.
The creation of the organization is one of the measures adopted by the Canadian authorities in the face of the imminent arrival to the White House of donald trumpwho has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on Canadian imports.
The Canadian government and the country’s business leaders have warned that, if the tariffs are applied, it will cause a serious economic crisis, with the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the country.
The Council on Canada-United States Relations is made up of 18 people, including the Conservative Jean Charestformer head of Government of Quebec; the social democrat Rachel Notleyformer head of government of Alberta; Lana Paynepresident of the Unifor union; and Flavio Volpepresident of the Association of Automobile Component Manufacturers.
The creation of the council is announced a day after Trudeau met in Ottawa with the heads of government of the country’s 10 provinces to try to unify the country’s response to the announced tariffs.
On Sunday, the Canadian Foreign Minister, Mélanie Joly, who is emerging as the person most responsible for designing Canada’s response to the threat of tariffs, declared that “everything is on the table” when asked if the Government could embargo oil sales to the United States.
Although nine of the ten provinces signed the final declaration after the meeting, the head of Government of Alberta, the conservative Danielle Smith He refused to offer his support.
Smith, who met with Trump in the United States last Saturday and who confirmed his attendance in Washington on January 20 at the Republican leader’s inauguration ceremony, explained his decision to oppose Canada imposing an oil embargo on USA.
On Wednesday, Trudeau noted that will not reject any measureincluding an oil embargo, in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs.
Alberta is Canada’s main oil producer and the US is the only international customer of Canadian crude.
The province is the source of 83% of the country’s oil, the fourth largest oil producer in the world with 5.3 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2024. 97% of the oil exported by Canada is destined for the United States.
In 2023, 60% of the oil imported by the United States came from Canada.
Smith has already threatened in the past to promote the independence of Alberta if the Canadian government imposes measures that restrict activity in the oil sector.
And in 2022, the Smith Government passed a law, called Alberta sovereignty in a united Canadawhich allows the province to ignore federal laws although the legislation also notes that it is not designed to bring about its independence from the country.
The head of Government of the province of Ontario, Doug Fordalready indicated several weeks ago that he could retaliate against the US cutting off electricity exports that power 1.5 million homes in New York, Michigan and Minnesota.
(With information from EFE)
