Oil & gas get the blame for Trump’s expansionist pretensions toward Canada, renewables portrayed as road to independence

As the expansionist mindset behind the U.S. President-elect’s America First era begins to unfold even before President Joe Biden officially hands over the reins to Donald Trump, threats to Canada, Greenland, and Panama have already caused a barrage of reactions, with stark warnings coming from those convinced that Trump’s imperialist notions of America being a supreme ruler and pretensions toward other countries are likely to butt heads with international law. Given the uptick in Canada’s oil and gas stocks, some blame the fossil fuel industry for Trump’s annexation threat, painting renewable energy as the solution to cut dependence on foreign powers and might.

Against the backdrop of foreign powers intensifying efforts to advance their encroachment into the Western Hemisphere, Trump made the headlines with his views on terminating the Panama Canal Treaty, fanning the flames further when he refused to rule out force to take back the Panama Canal or grab hold of Greenland during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

The Republican leader clearly said in response to a reporter’s question that he was not going to commit to excluding such a move and added: “It might be that you will have to do something. The Panama Canal is vital to our country.” While the U.S. President-elect deems Greenland to be needed for “national security purposes,” he believes both are required to ensure America’s “economic security.”

In Trump’s worldview, America gave the Panama Canal to Panama, not China, which is accused of controlling the waterway. In addition, if Denmark does not give up Greenland, which is currently a self-governing entity within its borders, he plans to hit the European country with tariffs “at a very high level.” These and many similar musings on the U.S. President-elect’s part certainly back up the global analysts’ predictions about the turbulent geopolitical climate looming over the world’s political horizon.

Another country that took the spotlight at the start of the week was Canada, once its Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, resigned. This prompted Trump to double down on his calls for the U.S. annexation of Canada, leading to an upsurge in oil and gas stocks. While some have welcomed Trump’s expansionist pretensions, most, such as Sierra Club Canada, were far from thrilled with his suggestion.

The U.S. President-elect interpreted Trudeau’s resignation as a win, paving the way toward annexation, and stated on Truth Social: “Many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State. The United States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat. Justin Trudeau knew this, and resigned.

“If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them. Together, what a great Nation it would be!!!”

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In response to Trump’s annexation threat, which he imagines implementing with “economic force” rather than using military action, Sierra Club Canada underlines that the oil and gas dependency for energy, transport, and employment exposes Canada to “the whims of hostile leaders like Trump,” presenting a rapid shift to a community-led renewable economy as the pathway and roadmap to secure the country’s independence.

Pierre Poilivere, Conservative Party leader, who is in the running to become Prime Minister of Canada following elections in October 2025, underlined: “Canada will never be the 51st state. Period. We are a great and independent country. We are the best friend to the U.S. We spent billions of dollars and hundreds of lives helping Americans retaliate against Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks. We supply the U.S. with billions of dollars of high-quality and totally reliable energy well below market prices. We buy hundreds of billions of dollars of American goods.

“Our weak and pathetic NDP-Liberal government has failed to make these obvious points. I will fight for Canada. When I am Prime Minister, we will rebuild our military and take back control of the border to secure both Canada and the U.S. We will take back control of our Arctic to keep Russia and China out. We will axe taxes, slash red tape and rapidly green-light massive resource projects to bring home paycheques and production to our country. In other words, we will put Canada First.”

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In addition, Sierra Club Canada has taken the time to outline why people should take the threat of annexation seriously and resist it during an interview with Financial Times (UK) reporter Elizabeth Meager in their Sustainable Views section on what the Prime Minister’s resignation means for environmental targets and policy in Canada.

In this interview, the Canadian environmental organization, consisting of a national branch and five chapters in Ontario, Atlantic Canada, Québec, the Prairies, and a nationwide Youth chapter, pointed out that 31% of Canada’s carbon emissions stem from the oil and gas sector, even though it stands for less than 5% of its economy as a whole.

Conor Curtis, Head of Communications at Sierra Club Canada, commented: “If tariffs come to Canada you can thank the oil and gas CEOs behind the next U.S. Administration for them. Last week oil and gas interests in Canada used the threat of tariffs to opportunistically whine about wanting the emissions cap cancelled – Canadian media partially took the bait.

“Within days it became clear the tariffs would might likely not apply to Canadian oil and gas, just to the other sectors of the Canadian economy. The fears of Canadian oil being out-competed by U.S. oil development have given way to calls to build more Canadian oil infrastructure to feed that oil to an oil-friendly U.S. regime.“

The resignation of Trudeau, who went from a savior promising better times ahead with plans to mitigate climate change in 2015 to a pariah, according to some analysts, given the state of play in the economy arena nine years down the road, is widely being interpreted as a way to save face before the general elections this year.

Currently, most polls predict a huge loss for the current leader of the Liberal Party due to several issues, including Trump’s threat to sign an executive order that will slap a 25% tariff on all Canadian products being imported into the U.S.

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Curtis underscored: “Even if tariffs are applied to oil and gas, as we outline in the podcast below, the emissions cap will not be the determining factor of competitiveness. For many oil and gas companies the emissions cap can be met through further cheap methane efforts. Those other sectors now threatened by tariffs have managed to cut their emissions, unlike oil and gas corporations.

“Without an emissions cap, other sectors and individual Canadians will keep having to pick up after oil and gas corporations in terms of emissions reductions. If we’re all in this together then the burden of reducing emissions should be fair.”

Sierra Club Canada claims that it has confirmed with analysts the importance of the emissions cap as it will be the missing link between the country missing out on and meeting its climate targets.

“That those most opposed to climate action are also those who want Canada to surrender into becoming the 51st U.S. State is unsurprising. U.S. conquest has usually happened as a result of the influence of oil and gas corporations, the same corporations that have thrown their support behind Trump. The interests of Canadian national sovereignty and those of oil and gas corporations are increasingly going in separate ways,” said the Canadian organization.

In Part One of ‘The Environment in Canada Podcast,’ on resisting U.S. annexation, Sierra Club Canada discussed what people could do to help stand up against annexation and why corporate-sponsored climate denial led Canada to the point it reached. The Canadian environmental organization also highlighted why the country needed an even more rapid shift to a renewable economy to remain independent of foreign powers like the United States.

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According to the organization, many of the proposed oil and gas expansion projects in Canada, like East Coast gas export facilities, have no business case unless they also receive huge sums of money from Canadian taxpayers in support and would have no benefit for Canadians.

Sierra Club Canada emphasized: “Unlike renewable energy, fossil fuel projects are hard to localize, meaning the source of the energy you use is not near the site of use and the benefits evaporate into corporate profits. Whether it’s in terms of jobs, transport or electricity reliance on oil and gas makes us vulnerable to foreign powers like the U.S., international markets, and prices set by oil and gas corporations themselves.

“Oil and gas corporations have also seen huge profits, over $10 billion in the first half of 2024 alone, while Canadians by contrast are facing hard economic times: For every additional dollar of inflation you pay in Canada [as of 2023], 25 cents of that has gone to oil and gas and mining extraction profits. The majority of those profits go to the richest 1% and very little of those profits end up in things like pension funds.”

While many court challenges have ended up in favor of oil and gas companies, the environmental organization still believes courts can help in the fight against climate change as such legal victories set precedents that could be the catalysts that speed up future cases while also widening the awareness horizons.

Furthermore, Sierra Club Canada spotlights the views expressed by analysts who are convinced Canada’s fossil fuel sector will be wrecked by uncertainty in the months to come, despite the rise in stocks, as many businesses are making deals that will come into power once Trump returns to the White House.

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As Canada curbed its emissions by 8.5% through 2023, based on a recent report, this is still seen as being far below the reduction level required to meet 2030 goals. However, Catherine Abreu, Director of International Climate Politics Hub, dubbed the report an “early Christmas present for the climate.”

“The big takeaway for me is that regulations work. Government policy to drive down the use of coal in electricity systems has delivered the biggest cut to climate pollution—58% reductions between 2005 and 2023,” emphasized Abreu, adding that “oil and gas continues to be the largest and fastest growing source of pollution,” thus, “it would be even worse without effective regulations to drive down methane emissions.”

Curtis claims that the misinformation about climate change has spread far and wide. Therefore, he felt the need to explain that CO2 is a pollutant and human-caused CO2 causes climate change, as it is not just ‘plant food.’

Regarding other common climate myths, Curtis elaborates that talking with others is the biggest impact one can have. He urges people to prioritize talking to those on the fence about the seriousness of the climate crisis while calling out oil and gas CEOs in the process.

In Part Two of ‘The Environment in Canada Podcast,’ on resisting U.S. annexation, Sierra Club Canada presents a Q&A on questions received from people about what would the many forms of annexation look like, the response from the media, how would annexation impact Canada’s influence on the U.S.’ politics, and more on why people should take the threat of this annexation seriously.

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Many see the potential merger between the two countries that share one of the longest borders in the world as an impossible mission. The current state of energy play shows that Americans use millions of Canadian petroleum barrels daily, thus, a 25% tax on this fuel will neither bring down inflation nor will it be seen as a good move by U.S. voters, including those that support Trump.

Regardless of whether there is a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada will become a part of the United States, Trump’s expansionism is causing shock waves that continue to reverberate across the world, leaving its mark on the global energy scene too.

The U.S. President-elect’s energy policy is expected to bring sunnier days to the oil and gas industry, but it may also push some countries and economies into fast-tracking their pivot to renewable energy, as seems to be the case in certain parts of Canada, given the growing call to phase out fossil fuels.

After poll results indicated that 54% of Canadians prefer prioritizing renewable energy sources over fossil fuel production, Julia Levin, Associate Director of National Climate at Environmental Defence, hammered the point home: “Canadians recognize that fossil fuels are causing the climate crisis and want to see governments act to phase out the production and use of coal, oil and gas.

“Yet even as the damages from climate change increase, including wildfires, heatwaves and floods, the federal and provincial governments have largely failed to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Some provinces are even trying to stop federal efforts to reduce fossil fuel pollution. Urgent climate action is necessary – and Canadians are calling for it.”

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