Expect spike in U.S. gas prices due to Trump tariffs: Alberta premier

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OTTAWA — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said that she’ll do her part to make sure that American drivers know who to thank for higher prices at the pump if United States President Donald Trump moves ahead with across-the-board tariffs on Canada.

“If tariffs do come in, then we would be looking very closely at the markets that receive Canadian oil to see if there’s an increase in price,” Smith said in an interview Friday with the National Post.

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“We’ve been told that the price could (rise) as much as 35 cents (per gallon) American to 75 cents,” said Smith.

“We’ll very likely see that there are voices out there willing to point that out.”

Analysts say cross-border tariffs would likely drive up gasoline prices the most in the Upper Midwest, a region that’s regularly a key electoral battleground in presidential and congressional races.

Fifteen Midwestern states currently source all of their oil imports from Canada, including all-important swing states Wisconsin and Michigan. Trump won both states in his victorious 2016 and 2024 campaigns, but carried neither in his failed 2020 re-election bid.

At any given time, up to two-thirds of the gasoline that flows through the pumps in major Midwestern markets like Chicago and Detroit can be traced back to the Alberta oil sands.

None of this seems to worry Trump, who said during a virtual address to the World Economic Forum on Thursday that the U.S. doesn’t need Canada’s oil and gas, because it has plenty of its own.

The region is also home to a dense network of refineries that are rigged to process the heavy crude that flows from north of the border.

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Smith noted that stakeholders like the American Petroleum Institute (API) are already highlighting the synergy between Canadian crude and U.S.-based refineries, and the impact a cross-border tariff would have on gasoline prices.

“Obviously API is willing to point that out,” said Smith.

The Washington, D.C.-based oil and gas trade association wrote to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative this week to ask for petroleum products to be excluded from any new tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

“We import a lot of oil from both Mexico and Canada, and we refine it here in the most sophisticated refinery system in the world,” said API CEO Mike Summers in a Thursday statement.

“We’re going to continue working with the Trump administration on this so that they understand how important it is we continue these trade relationships.”

Smith says she also expects that subnational allies, such as fellow members of the Governors’ Coalition for Energy Security, will speak out against national policies that hurt consumers at the pump.

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“We believe that we’re going to be a really important coalition of energy providers to make the case for affordable and reliable energy,” said Smith.

Alberta became the first non-U.S. jurisdiction to enter the coalition in November, joining forces with 14 U.S. states, including Wyoming, Indiana and South Dakota.

Smith wouldn’t say whether she’d roll out ads in U.S. markets similar to the ones Alberta has recently run against Ottawa’s net-zero policies.

She still says she’s being proactive in getting Alberta’s message out to Americans, pointing to last week’s launch of a new cross-border ad campaign targeting the Washington, D.C. market.

Smith said the campaign, called Alberta is the Answer, seeks to raise awareness of Alberta’s role in continental energy, food and data security.

“We want national decision-makers to know that Alberta is the answer for a lot of the most pressing issues that they face,” said Smith.

Smith returned to Alberta on Thursday, after a five-day stay in Washington coinciding with President Trump’s inauguration.

Trump has threatened to place 25 per cent across-the-board tariffs on both Canada and Mexico, starting Feb. 1.

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

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