Full Bore or Measured? Canada Answers Trump's August 19 Tariffs!

By Allan Janssen — Allan's Canadian Perspective

On August 19, 2026, the United States is scheduled to impose an additional 50 percent tariff on a range of Canadian goods... dairy, alcohol, cement, honey, hockey sticks, some wood products and vehicles... under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930. 

The question every Canadian policymaker, premier and exporter is now asking is the oldest one in trade warfare: Do we retaliate full bore, or do we give a measured reply? 

The debate over Canada tariff retaliation is not academic. 

It will shape the Canadian economy for years!

What Trump Actually Said... and What He Didn't!

Asked this week on Fox News whether he wanted to update CUSMA, President Trump said he didn't care, that he would "rather be independent," and that Canada and Mexico need the United States more than the reverse! 

It was blunt, but note what it wasn't: It wasn't a withdrawal notice! 

CUSMA remains in force until 2036, and leaving it requires six months' formal notice... something the White House has conspicuously avoided triggering. (The administration declined to extend the deal beyond 2036 back on July 1, which starts a renegotiation clock, not a demolition!)

That distinction matters! Trump's pattern for eighteen months has been deadline, threat, partial climbdown. The August 19 tariffs may be the real thing, or they may be the pressure mechanism for the CUSMA review. 

Ottawa has to plan for both!

The Case for Going Full Bore:

Ontario Premier Doug Ford wants dollar-for-dollar retaliation. British Columbia's David Eby has floated critical minerals as leverage. 

The argument is straightforward... this president reads restraint as weakness, and every measured Canadian response since 2025 has been followed by a new round of threats. 

Canada holds genuine cards... energy, potash, uranium, electricity exports that keep the lights on in Michigan and New England, and the critical minerals American defence and battery supply chains cannot easily replace!

There is also the domestic dimension. Exporters watching orders evaporate do not experience patience as strategy. 

They experience it as abandonment!

The Case for a Measured Reply:

The arithmetic is unforgiving. Over 75% ↑ of Canadian exports go to the United States... less than a fifth 20% ↓ of American exports come north! 

Dollar-for-dollar tariffs against an economy ten times larger means Canadian consumers absorb proportionally far more of the pain!

Look also at what Washington exempted from the new tariffs: Energy, potash, fish and critical minerals! 

The White House carved out precisely the goods America actually needs from Canada. 

That tells you where the real leverage sits... and it is exactly the leverage that is hardest to play! 

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith opposes putting energy on the table at all, pointing to Line 5's route through Michigan. A full-bore response risks fracturing the federation along east-west lines before it inflicts serious cost on Washington.

Carney's Third Option: Hold Fire, Load the Chamber:

Prime Minister Mark Carney has chosen neither extreme. After meeting the premiers in Charlottetown, he said "everything is on the table" if the tariffs take effect, but that retaliating before August 19 would be counterproductive while negotiations continue. 

This is not passivity... it is sequencing! 

Striking first... hands Washington the escalation narrative! 

Waiting until the tariffs are real preserves both the moral position and the full menu of options... what I have previously called the Operation Tidewater framework... energy, potash, electricity and tidewater access held visibly in reserve!

What Precision Retaliation Would Look Like:

If the tariffs land, the effective response is neither full bore nor symbolic. 

It is precision!

Red-state targeting: The 2018 playbook worked. Tariffs on Kentucky bourbon, Florida orange juice and Wisconsin dairy demonstrably moved Congressional Republicans, because CUSMA... and the trade relationship generally... retains broad Republican support in agricultural states. 

That constituency is Canada's secret ally!

Provincial measures: Alcohol delisting costs Canada almost nothing... and is highly visible to American producers!

The reserve card: Energy, potash and critical minerals stay holstered... but conspicuously so!!! (Their value is greatest un-played, as the American exemption list itself concedes!)

Diversification as the long game: CETA, the CPTPP and the removal of interprovincial trade barriers are the only responses Trump cannot veto.

The Fault Line Nobody Is Covering:

The underreported story is not Canada versus Trump. 

It is Ford versus Smith! 

A retaliation package that looks forceful in Toronto can look self-defeating in Edmonton or Regina, because Ontario's manufacturers and the West's commodity exporters face entirely different risk profiles... especially when western exports were largely exempted!

Team Canada held together through the first rounds of this trade war. 

Whether it holds after August 19 may matter more than the tariff schedule itself!

FAQ: The August 19 Tariffs and CUSMA:

What happens on August 19, 2026?

An additional 50 percent U.S. tariff takes effect on certain Canadian goods, including dairy, alcohol, cement, motor vehicles and some wood products, unless a negotiated deal averts it.

Can Trump simply cancel CUSMA?

Not overnight. 

CUSMA runs until 2036, and withdrawal requires six months' formal notice, which has not been given. 

Congress implemented the deal by statute, and unilateral presidential withdrawal would face legal challenge and Republican resistance in agricultural states.

Has Canada announced retaliation?

Not yet. Prime Minister Carney says "everything is on the table" but that pre-emptive retaliation would be counterproductive while negotiations continue.

Which Canadian goods are exempt from the new tariffs?

Energy, potash, fish and critical minerals... the goods the United States depends on most!

---

Allan Janssen writes on Canadian policy, defence and trade at Allan's Canadian Perspective.

Saturday Morning Confusion about the F-35 and the SAAB Gripen!

The most important question in Canada's fighter jet decision may not be about either fighter jet!

While Ottawa's review of the F-35 purchase drags into its second year, the nature of air combat itself is being rewritten. 

In June 2026, the United States Air Force signed its first production contracts for more than 150 AI-piloted "loyal wingman" drones... formally, Collaborative Combat Aircraft... (CCA) built by Anduril and General Atomics at roughly $30 million apiece! (About a third the price of an F-35!) 

The stated goal: at least 1,000 semi-autonomous wingmen flying alongside American fighters by the end of the decade.

These are not surveillance drones. 

They are uncrewed fighter aircraft, designated in the fighter series for the first time in USAF history... designed to scout ahead of crewed jets, jam radars, carry missiles, and absorb the risks no air force wants to spend a pilot on! 

Boeing's Australian-built MQ-28 Ghost Bat made its first static appearance at Farnborough this month. 

The United Kingdom already has its first autonomous collaborative platform in RAF service. 

Japan, China, Türkiye, and India are all building their own!

Which raises an awkward question for Canada: "We are spending years deciding between two crewed fighters while the rest of the alliance decides how to team crewed fighters with uncrewed ones!"

 The answer we choose will quietly determine which AI-wingman ecosystem Canada joins... and on whose terms!

Where the Fighter Decision Stands:

A quick recap for readers just joining this file. 

Canada signed for 88 F-35As in January 2023, in a program now costed above $27 billion. 

One day after becoming prime minister in March 2025, Mark Carney ordered a review of the purchase... a direct response to American tariff pressure and the broader deterioration in Canada – U.S. trust! (Canada remains legally committed to the first 16 aircraft, with deliveries beginning this year!)

Since then, the options have multiplied. 

In January 2026, Saab formally offered Canada 72 Gripen E fighters plus six GlobalEye early-warning aircraft, with Canadian assembly and an estimated 12,600 Canadian jobs attached. 

By late May, La Presse reported that a mixed fleet of roughly 30 F-35As and 60 Gripens had emerged as the review's preferred outcome! 

A June CBC report described an even larger option: A 140-jet force combining 72–88 F-35As with up to 72 Canadian-built Gripens!

Reporting now suggests no announcement before the U.S. midterm elections in November 2026... "Ottawa apparently prefers not to hand Washington a grievance during an American campaign season!"

The AI Wingman Race Changes the Question:

Here is where the drone story cuts into the fighter story... in both directions!

The case for the F-35 just got stronger! 

The American CCA program is years ahead of everyone else's, and the F-35 is being built as its quarterback. 

The FQ-42 and FQ-44 drones now entering production are designed to fly alongside F-22s, F-35s, and the future F-47, and the USAF is already exploring foreign military sales of the CCA to allies. 

An F-35 fleet gives Canada a plug-and-play path into the most mature drone-teaming ecosystem in existence... no small thing for NORAD, where seamless interoperability with the USAF is the whole point!

But... so did the case for the Gripen!!! 

The entire premise of Carney's review is that Canada is dangerously exposed to U.S. - controlled defence supply chains! 

If that worries you about a fighter's software, it should worry you twice as much about autonomous combat aircraft whose AI, weapons authorization, and upgrade path all run through Washington! 

Saab's counter-offer speaks directly to this anxiety... and it is more credible than most Canadians realize!

In mid-2025, Saab and the German AI firm Helsing flew a Gripen E in Swedish airspace under the control of an AI agent called Centaur, which executed beyond-visual-range combat manoeuvres against a human-piloted Gripen D, tracked targets with onboard sensors, and cued the pilot when to fire. 

The system had trained itself through more than 500,000 simulated flight hours. It was a genuine world first for an operational front-line fighter, and it was possible because the Gripen E's software architecture allows new functions to be integrated and re-certified in days rather than years — the exact quality Canada's 2021 evaluation scored at 28 out of 100 for "upgradability."  (Flawed!)

Hold that thought!

Saab has also suggested Canada could become a development partner in Sweden's next-generation combat air program, KFS... the program building Sweden's future stealth fighter and its family of wingman drones. 

Combined with Canadian Gripen assembly and technology transfer, that is an offer to make Canada a co-developer of the next generation of this technology rather than a customer for the last one!

The honest caveat: Saab's wingman drone does not yet exist! 

Its demonstrator will not fly until 2027, an engine supplier has not been secured, and the American designs are already in weapons testing! 

SO... The Gripen path buys sovereignty and industrial participation in a future capability... the F-35 path buys access to a present one! 

That is the real trade, and no press release from either company will state it that plainly!

The 2021 Evaluation Deserves a Second Look:

Defenders of the original F-35 decision point to the leaked scorecard from the 'Future Fighter Capability Project:' (The F-35 scored 95 percent on military capability... the Gripen E just 33 percent! Case closed for bias... eh?)

When two aircraft with fundamentally different design philosophies produce a result this lopsided... the criteria are doing as much work as the airplanes! 

An evaluation that heavily rewards stealth penetration of defended airspace will always crown the only stealth aircraft in the competition. 

Whether deep-strike stealth is the right thing to weigh at half the scorecard for a country whose actual daily missions are Arctic sovereignty patrols and NORAD interception over enormous distances is precisely the question the evaluation never had to answer.

Two further facts sharpen the concern! 

The Swedish business press has reported, citing confidential sources, that Ottawa applied a risk coefficient that significantly reduced the Gripen's scores simply because it was a new-series aircraft... and National Defence has refused to disclose its methodology, citing procurement integrity! 

And two of the competition's European entrants, Dassault and Airbus, withdrew before final scoring as well... with Airbus explicitly arguing the terms favoured the F-35!

None of this proves the Gripen would have won a differently weighted competition! "A department confident in its methodology would publish it... the refusal to do so is the strongest single piece of evidence that the 2021 evaluation answered a narrower question than... What does Canada need?"

What This Decision Is Actually About:

Strip away the horse race and the Carney review comes down to this: "Does Canada want to be a renter in the American air-power system, or a junior partner in building a European one?"

Tenancy has real advantages... the best aircraft, the most mature drone ecosystem, frictionless NORAD integration. 

It also has the disadvantage Canadians have spent eighteen months relearning: "The landlord can change the terms... Partnership offers sovereignty, jobs, technology transfer, and a seat at the table for the AI-teaming era!"

And the skeptics deserve the last word on sovereignty's limits: "Geography does not move. Continental air defence, NORAD data-sharing, and wartime coordination will run through Washington regardless of which airframe sits on the ramp at Cold Lake! 

The Gripen cannot buy Canada independence from the United States! 

What it can buy is leverage, options, and an industrial base... which, in 2026, may be the more honest definition of sovereignty anyway!

The government's own delay tells you it understands the stakes! 

A decision that was supposed to take three months is now timed around American elections! 

Whatever Ottawa announces after November, remember that the fine print about drones, software, and who controls the upgrades will matter more in 2035... than who's logo is on the tail!

Allan's Canadian Perspective covers Canadian defence procurement, energy policy, and Canada–U.S. strategic dynamics. Previous coverage in this series includes the F-35 review timeline and the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project decision!

T.G.I.F.

Since it's Friday and the markets are closed for the weekend... I thought it was a good time to show you this!

Take Away the A.I. Stocks and What's Left? 

A Healthier Market Than You Think!

What the S&P 500 looks like without the Magnificent Seven — and why Canadians should be watching the other 493 companies, not the seven everyone talks about.

Here is a thought experiment worth doing with real numbers: Take the S&P 500, remove the A.I. trade... Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Tesla, the so-called Magnificent Seven... and look at what remains! 

***

The exercise sounds academic. 

It isn't! 

The S&P 500 without AI stocks turns out to be a different market entirely, and in 2026 that difference has become the single most useful diagnostic tool an observer of the North American economy can have!

A Third of the Index Is Seven Companies:

Start with the scale of the problem. As of July 2026, the Magnificent Seven carry a combined market value of roughly $22 trillion... about one-third of the entire S&P 500. 

That weight has hovered between 32% and 35% for the past year. 

Put another way: when you buy a plain index fund believing you own "the market," a third of your money is riding on seven companies whose valuations rest largely on a single technological bet!

This is not a normal state of affairs. 

Concentration at this level exceeds anything seen at the peak of the dot-com era, and it means the daily movement of the index tells you more about sentiment toward one trade than about the health of the American economy!

The Tale of Two Markets in 2026:

Now remove those seven names and watch the picture change. There is an exchange-traded fund that does exactly this... the Defiance Large Cap ex-Mag 7 ETF, ticker XMAG, which holds the S&P 500 minus the seven. 

Its performance this year against the full index is instructive:

• The Magnificent Seven, measured by the Roundhill MAGS ETF, peaked in late October 2025 and have been drifting downward since — falling as much as 12% at points this year.
• The full, cap-weighted S&P 500 has been dragged down with them, off roughly 4% at the spring lows.
• The other 493 companies... some analysts have started calling them the "Impressive 493" have held nearly flat to modestly positive.

And beneath that flat aggregate number, the old economy is having a genuinely good year. 

By late winter, energy stocks were up more than 23%, basic materials nearly 18%, consumer staples over 15%, and industrials about 14%. 

Healthcare and even residential construction have joined the advance. 

Money is not fleeing the stock market... it is rotating out of the crowded A.I. trade and into everything else!

What the Market Without A.I. Stocks Actually Tells Us:

Three conclusions fall out of the numbers.

First, the underlying American economy is in better shape than the headline index implies. The 493 trade at far more ordinary valuations. Their anchors... JPMorgan, Exxon Mobil, Johnson & Johnson, Walmart... are companies with decades-long records of dividends backed by real cash flow. 

The famous warnings about the S&P 500's stretched valuation are overwhelmingly a statement about seven stocks... not five hundred!

Second, the index is no longer a mirror of the market. Because the seven still account for roughly a third of the index's weight, a bad day for Nvidia moves the S&P 500 more than a good quarter for a hundred mid-sized industrial firms. 

Investors who believed they held a diversified portfolio have, in fact, been holding a concentrated technology bet with a long tail of other companies attached.

Third, the unwind... so far... is orderly! The feared scenario has always been that an A.I. correction takes the whole market down with it. 

What has actually happened through mid-2026 is a rotation... capital leaving the seven and finding a home in energy, materials, financials, and staples. 

This is the "broadening out" that market veterans like Ed Yardeni predicted when he ended his buy call on big tech last December, arguing that the AI story could only continue if its benefits spread to the companies buying the technology, not just the ones selling it!

What Can Be Done With This Information:

For an ordinary investor, the toolkit is straightforward and already exists. 

Equal-weight index funds, the largest being the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP), assign each of the 500 companies the same 0.2% weight, cutting Magnificent Seven exposure from about 35% to roughly 1.4% while keeping full exposure to American large caps. 

Funds like XMAG exclude the seven outright! 

Neither is a prediction that A.I. stocks will crash; both are simply ways to own the market without owning quite so much of a single trade. (The usual caveat applies.... this is a description of the instruments, not investment advice!)

But the more valuable use of the ex-A.I. market is diagnostic, and this is where the Canadian interest comes in.

The performance gap between the seven and the 493 is a real-time gauge of whether the A.I. correction stays contained or turns systemic. 

Watch the tripwire: as long as the 493 keep grinding higher while the seven deflate, what we are witnessing is a sector repricing... painful for index holders, but not a repeat of 2000 or 2008. 

If the 493 begins rolling over as well, it means the damage is spilling over into the broader economy through reduced capital spending, a shrinking wealth effect, and tighter credit!

That distinction matters enormously north of the border. 

A.I. data-centre construction has been one of the few forces propping up American GDP growth. 

A contained unwind leaves U.S. demand for Canadian energy, lumber, metals, and manufactured goods largely intact… and note that the sectors leading the 2026 rotation, energy and materials, are precisely the sectors where Canada sells! 

A systemic unwind, by contrast, would hit Canadian exports just as the country works its way out of its technical recession, though it would likely also accelerate the rotation into Canadian federal bonds that has already been underway as global investors look for alternatives to U.S. assets.

The Bottom Line:

Strip the AI stocks out of the S&P 500, and you find a market that is neither euphoric nor collapsing... just an ordinary economy, reasonably priced, going about its business! 

The bubble, if that is what it is, lives in seven names! 

The information in that split is more useful than any forecast... it tells you where the risk is concentrated, gives you the means to step around it, and... for those of us watching from Canada... provides an early-warning system for whether America's A.I. reckoning will stay on Wall Street... or arrive at our loading docks!

Keep your eye on the 493. They are the real market!

Canada Picks Germany!

 TKMS Wins the Submarine Competition:

After two years of signalling, three NATO summits, and one of the most aggressively contested defence competitions in Canadian history, we finally have an answer. On July 6, 2026, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced in Halifax that Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) has been selected as the preferred bidder for the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project (CPSP) — a program to build up to 12 conventionally powered submarines for the Royal Canadian Navy.

The German Type 212CD beat out South Korea's Hanwha Ocean and its KSS-III, ending a rivalry that saw both companies — and both governments — court Ottawa with industrial promises on a scale Canadian procurement has rarely seen. The timing was no accident: the announcement came just before the Prime Minister departed for the NATO leaders' summit in Ankara, where Canada will arrive with something it has not had in decades — a credible plan to put a real fleet underwater.

What Canada Is Actually Buying:

The numbers deserve a moment of attention. The submarine construction contract is expected to be worth between $20 billion and $30 billion, with operations, maintenance, and upgrades over the life of the fleet pushing the total toward $40 billion to $50 billion more. Some estimates put the full thirty-year program cost above $100 billion.

For that money, Canada gets something it has never had. The Royal Canadian Navy currently operates four second-hand Victoria-class submarines, of which typically only one is operational at any given time. Canada has not purchased a new submarine since the 1960s and has never ordered anything close to 12 boats at once. The navy's logic is straightforward: with roughly one in four submarines available for deployment at any time (the rest in maintenance or training), a 12-boat fleet gives Canada three submarines on station — enough to maintain a genuine deterrent presence across the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific approaches.

Why the Germans Won:

On paper, Hanwha had the stronger operational case. The KSS-III is already in service with the Republic of Korea Navy, uses fuel-cell propulsion with lithium-ion batteries that allow it to stay submerged for more than three weeks, and Hanwha promised first delivery by 2032 — years ahead of the German timeline. The Type 212CD, by contrast, has not yet entered operational service anywhere. Germany answered that concern by pledging to reallocate boats from its own and Norway's existing orders, committing to deliver four submarines to Canada by 2036.

So why did Ottawa choose the unproven boat with the slower schedule? Three reasons stand out.

First, the economics. The conventional wisdom held that Hanwha's industrial charm offensive — 80-plus Canadian partners, the Algoma Steel investment, hydrogen truck manufacturing, a projected $120 billion GDP contribution — would carry the day. But TKMS quietly assembled the larger package: reported pledges of $160 billion in economic effects and more than 650,000 jobs, against Hanwha's $70 billion-plus and 430,000 jobs. Ottawa had made clear that with both boats meeting the navy's requirements, economic benefits would be the deciding factor, particularly for industries battered by the U.S. tariff conflict — steel, aluminum, autos, and forestry.

Second, the alliance logic. Choosing TKMS underscores NATO interoperability and deepens Canada's long-term defence and industrial relationship with Europe. The Type 212CD is a joint German-Norwegian program; Canada now joins an established European submarine ecosystem rather than becoming the anchor customer for a Korean expansion into the Atlantic. In the Carney era of "middle power" coalition-building — and with Washington's reliability an open question — the transatlantic signal matters as much as the boat.

Third, the lifecycle weighting. The evaluation criteria told the story before the announcement did: maintenance, repair, and overhaul accounted for fully 50% of the assessment, with the submarine platform itself weighted at only 20%. Canada was not just buying 12 hulls — it was choosing a strategic partner for the next 40 to 50 years. Berlin and Oslo, embedded in NATO's northern flank, evidently made the more convincing case for the long haul.

The Caveats:

A preferred-bidder announcement is not a signed contract. Negotiations are expected to continue for months or longer, with the government aiming for a final contract by 2028. Ottawa will want to convert the announcement's leverage into binding commitments on delivery schedules, technology transfer, and domestic industrial investment before ink meets paper.

And the risks are real. The Type 212CD remains in the early stages of production, and TKMS has reportedly faced near-term cash flow pressures while juggling multiple large naval programs. Germany's promise to divert boats from its own orders is a serious commitment — but promises made during a competition have a way of softening once the competition ends. With the Victoria-class fleet expected to retire between 2036 and 2042, there is little slack in the schedule for German delays.

The Bigger Picture:

Notably absent from this entire competition: the United States. Canada ruled out nuclear boats, and the Americans no longer build conventional diesel-electric submarines, so for once there was no U.S. defence giant at the table and no pressure from Washington tilting the scales. Compare that to the fighter jet file, where the F-35 selection — currently under review by Ottawa — was widely seen as a foregone conclusion.

That absence made the CPSP something rare: a genuinely sovereign Canadian defence decision, made on Canadian criteria, between two allies competing on merit and money. Whether Ottawa chose correctly will take a decade to know. But the fact that Canada could make this choice at all — $60 billion or more, no American thumb on the scale, industrial benefits directed at the sectors Washington's tariffs have hurt most — says something about where Canadian strategic autonomy is heading.

The submarines are the headline. The independence is the story!

What do you think — did Ottawa make the right call choosing the German bid over the proven Korean boat? Leave a comment below.

Go back to Yemen... eh!

When my dad brought our family here from war-torn Europe in the early 50's, the first thing he asked was what his obligations would be as a new Canadian! (He wanted to do his part... eh!!!)

Nowadays, new immigrants come over here, and the very first thing they want to know is... "WHAT ARE THEIR RIGHTS!

I'm not gonna comment on this kids... it speaks for itself!

Canada is NOT the 51st. State!

A NOTE TO ALL AMERICANS!

I'VE ALWAYS LIKED THIS GUY!!!

 

TRADE WAR!

Hey folks, wanna read something REALLY funny?

↓

One of these days... (very soon) Canadians will reach the breaking point with Donald Drumpf and show him just how much... "He doesn't need anything from Canada!!!

Forget the oil and the gas, and the potash, and the uranium, and the lumber, and the precious metals... let's just take a look at ONE of the weapons we have in our arsenal!

ELECTRICITY!

The US cities that run on Canadian electricity... and don’t know it!

Story by Trisha A. Ilarde:

Most Americans flip a light switch without a single thought about where that power actually began. In dozens of US towns, though, the electricity humming through the walls started its journey hundreds of miles north, behind a Canadian dam or wind farm. Canada and the United States share one of the most connected power grids on the planet, and 86 international power lines along the Canada-US border move electricity between provinces and states.

This quiet setup worked smoothly for over a century, mostly because the two countries got along. Recent trade fights changed that, putting the hidden energy lifeline in the spotlight as tariffs and counter-threats flew. Suddenly, the idea that a Canadian premier could flip a switch and raise American power bills felt very real. 

Here are some US cities and regions that lean on Canadian electricity far more than the people living there might guess!

***

Burlington, Vermont

©Image Credit: Jared and Corin Wikimedia Commons, Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Vermont stands out as the clearest example of American reliance on Canadian power, and Burlington sits right in the middle of it. Hydro-Québec has agreed to supply roughly 25% of the state’s annual electricity needs through 2038, so Canadian hydropower makes up about a quarter of Vermont’s electricity portfolio, if not more. The connection runs through a transmission line linking a Quebec substation to the Highgate substation in northwest Vermont. Much of the state’s clean energy image is actually Canadian-made.

Buffalo, New York

©Image Credit: Tim Gerland on Flickr, Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Power flows into Buffalo from across the Niagara River, and the city would feel a sudden cutoff harder than almost anywhere else. Buffalo and upstate New York would take an especially hard hit if Ontario restricted exports, since that tends to happen during a cold, peak-demand stretch of the year.

Experts warned that cutting electricity with little warning could cause severe impacts on both prices and the volume of power available. Sitting close to the border makes the city both lucky and exposed. Cheap, steady Canadian power feels like a gift right up until someone threatens to take it away.

Rochester, New York

©Image Credit: Ken Lund on Flickr, Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Down the road from Buffalo, Rochester shares the same heavy dependence on Ontario’s grid. One senior energy analyst noted that any Ontario move to restrict exports would fall especially hard on Buffalo and upstate New York, including Rochester. Timing makes it worse because the threat surfaced during winter, when heating demand peaks and the system has little slack. New York as a whole buys more Canadian power than any other state. That fact leaves mid-sized cities like Rochester quietly vulnerable to politics playing out hundreds of miles away.

New York City, New York

©Image Credit: Andres Figueroa from Pexes.

America’s largest city ties into the Canadian grid too, mostly through Quebec’s massive hydro network. Quebec exported about 10.39 TWh of hydropower-driven electricity to New York in 2017, with Ontario adding another 8.22 TWh.

New York State leads the country in Canadian imports, bringing in 8.6 million MWh in 2024, worth $491 million, with 77% of that coming from Ontario. Builders have completed a major project to push even more Quebec hydropower straight into the city. A chunk of the round-the-clock power in the city that never sleeps carries a Canadian accent.

Detroit, Michigan

©Image Credit: D. Jonze from Pexels.

Right across the river from Windsor, Detroit is wired directly into Ontario’s system. The electricity link connecting Michigan with Ontario consists mostly of Ontario exports into Detroit. A twist complicates the picture, because much of that power never stays put.

State regulators explain that plenty of electricity flows across the border into Michigan, yet almost none of it stays; instead, it moves eastward into Ohio and back into Canada near Niagara in a pattern called the Lake Erie Loop Flow. The city acts less like a destination and more like a busy hallway for Canadian electrons.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

©Image Credit: Josh Hild from Pexels

Bitter winters push Minnesota to draw heavily on its northern neighbour, especially the province of Manitoba. Every bit of electricity Manitoba sold to the United States in 2024 went to Minnesota, making the state its only customer.

Minnesota also ranked among five border states, alongside New York, Vermont, Michigan, and Maine, that together accounted for 78% of all Canadian exports in 2024. That dependence explains why Minnesota landed on the list of states facing an export surcharge during the trade fight. The Twin Cities stay warm partly thanks to Canadian dams.

Portland, Maine

©Image Credit: davidwilson1949 on Flickr, Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Maine’s power story belongs almost entirely to New Brunswick. Every bit of New Brunswick’s electricity exports flowed to Maine in 2024. That single-source relationship means the entire state, Portland included, relies on a single Canadian province for its imported power. New Brunswick’s cross-border electricity sales feed directly into Maine. Residents rarely think about this tidy, direct connection. When trade tensions flared, the quiet pipeline suddenly looked like a pressure point.

Seattle, Washington

©Image Credit: dumitru B from Pexels.

The Pacific Northwest runs on a different Canadian partner, British Columbia. British Columbia accounts for roughly 95% of Canadian electricity exports in the western region, and about 15% of those sales end up in Washington. BC also reaches farther than any other province, selling electricity to 13 states, with Washington as its biggest customer. Seattle benefits from BC’s huge hydro output flowing south across the border. The clean, rainy Northwest essentially shares a watershed and a power supply with its Canadian neighbour.

Great Falls, Montana

©Image Credit: Tim Evanson on Flickr, Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Montana might feel remote, yet Great Falls plugs straight into the cross-border grid. Analysts named it among the cities that still benefit significantly from Canadian electricity. Sitting close to the Alberta and BC borders, the region taps Canadian supply whenever it makes economic sense.

Provinces sell their excess power to the south when American buyers need it, and US distributors import it when it costs less than generating it themselves. Those northern connections quietly add stability to a sparsely populated state. Most folks in Great Falls would be surprised to learn how international their light switch really is.

Ogdensburg, New York

©Image Credit: CharmaineZoe's Marvelous Melange on Flickr, Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Perched on the St. Lawrence River, this small city sits practically on top of the Canadian border. Energy experts specifically named Ogdensburg among the US cities that still benefit significantly from Canadian electricity. Being right at the water’s edge puts it among the closest American communities to Ontario’s grid.

New York overall pulls most of its Canadian power from Ontario and imports the largest share of any state. Tiny border towns like this one often hold the deepest, oldest ties to the Canadian system. The river marking the boundary also carries the power.

Pembina, North Dakota

©Image Credit: afiler on Flickr, Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Pembina reaches about as far north as you can get in the lower 48, and its power supply shows it. The city appears among those that still benefit significantly from Canadian electricity. North Dakota receives power largely from Manitoba’s grid, which sends electricity south alongside Minnesota’s supply.

Manitoba exports electricity to both North Dakota and Minnesota through the central cross-border link. For a town wedged against the Manitoba line, Canadian power feels like the neighbour next door rather than anything exotic. The border here works more as a formality than a barrier for electrons.

Boston, Massachusetts

©Image Credit: Phil Evenden from Pexels.

New England’s biggest city has quietly bought Canadian hydropower for decades. Hydro-Québec built a 450-kV DC line in the early 1990s connecting its huge James Bay complex to the Sandy Pond substation near Boston, and it has since delivered more than 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.

That single line has served as a steady clean-energy artery into the region. Hydro-Québec has sold power into New England since the 1980s. Boston’s push toward greener energy rests on a Canadian backbone. The lights of the city carry a little bit of Quebec in them.

Chicago, Illinois

©Image Credit: Wendell Stoyer from Pexels.

Chicago sits inside a larger Midwestern grid that trades power back and forth with Canada. Canada’s main customers include the Midwestern states, fed largely by Ontario and Manitoba. Because the grid stays interconnected, electricity generated in Canada can flow through several states before reaching a given home.

This trade matters for grid balancing, constantly matching electricity use to electricity production across the region. Even an inland giant like Chicago indirectly leans on its northern supply. The grid doesn’t really care where someone drew the border.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

©Image Credit: Leroy Skalstad from Pexels.

Wisconsin came up by name when Ontario’s premier listed the states he could squeeze. Ontario’s leader said the province stood ready to go as far as cutting off energy flowing to Michigan, New York, and Wisconsin. Milwaukee sits in that same Midwestern grid network that exchanges power with Canada every day.

US utilities import Canadian electricity when they face a shortfall or when it simply costs less than producing their own. Those facts make the city part of the quiet web of cross-border dependence. A trade dispute in Ottawa could ripple all the way to a Milwaukee utility bill.

All the Northern Maine border towns!

©Image Credit: Joe Shlabotnik on Flickr, Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Beyond Portland, the smaller communities along Maine’s northern edge bind even more tightly to New Brunswick. Because every bit of New Brunswick’s exports went to Maine in 2024, the entire state’s imported power traces back to one province. For these border towns, the Canadian grid often serves as the nearest and most practical source. New Brunswick’s cross-border electricity sales feed directly into Maine. These communities live the US-Canada energy partnership more directly than almost anyone. When relations sour, they feel the chill first. (This is only a temporary situation since Maine will eventually join Canada as one of our provinces!!!)

AND REMEMBER FOLKS... THESE ARE ONLY SOME OF THE PLACES THAT WILL BE AFFECTED! (ALONG WITH ALL THE OTHER PLACES THAT WILL BE PUT IN JEPARDY FROM ALL THE OTHER ECONOMIC WEAPONS WE HAVE AVAILABLE!) 

N.Y.C. after we shut off their electricity!!!