“We want oil. We need oil,” said U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra on Monday. Canada has it and the U.S. wants it. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll deliver it.
Hoekstra made his comments at the annual summit of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region in Edmonton. He suggested Alberta and Saskatchewan could make the “most compelling” case to meet U.S. oil needs. “We have found over the last couple of decades that one of the best places in the world to get oil from is Canada,” Hoekstra explained.
It’s always great when someone else wants what you want to sell. Unfortunately, Canadian policy under former prime minister Justin Trudeau was typically to turn down a fossil fuel request. Instead, the good ship Canadian kept sailing towards net zero carbon emissions, no matter how adverse the winds. That stance has softened under Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Here’s one example. In 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz travelled to Canada to discuss Canadian LNG (liquified natural gas). Then-prime minister Trudeau said there had “never been a strong business case” for LNG exports from the east coast. But in May 2026, under Carney, the German state-owned utility SEFE agreed to purchase a million tonnes annually for 20 years from the Ksi Lisims LNG project on Canada’s West Coast.
Then again, Carney barely connected on an easy pitch from India. Last February, India’s high commissioner to Canada, Dinesh Patnaik, said, “On energy, there is an appetite which even Canada cannot fulfill and we are willing to buy whatever Canada is offering on crude, on LPG, on LNG,” LPG standing for liquified petroleum gas. Later, Carney and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a joint statement referencing both heavy oil and LNG. However, MOUs between the two countries included virtually every form of energy but these.
As for the United States, the nation has strong interest in Canadian oil, and the prime minister is apparently ready to offer it. Hoekstra revealed that when Carney met with Trump last fall, two members of the Trump administration were very eager to take up a preliminary offer to send more oil south to the U.S.
“The president had to advise them that crawling across the table and shaking Carney’s hand … was not necessarily the best negotiating strategy,” said Hoekstra. That’s true, but their strong interest cannot be forgotten, either.
Imagine for a moment if a man walks into a car dealership with his wife and she says, “Oh I absolutely love that car.” Then the husband turns to her and whispers, “Quiet down,” and he turns to the car dealer and says, “Meh, it’s not that great.” Alright, but the car dealer knows that background pressure is there and the potential buyer is going to have to deal with it.
Trump may be a hard negotiator, but members of his team want the oil. And to some extent, so does he. The mid-term elections are coming in November, and it would help him to offer proof he is taking steps to relieve high oil prices in the long term.
This puts Canada in a good position to gain more oil exports to the U.S. It’s also politically easier for Carney to make it happen. The greatest hostility towards pipelines is in coastal B.C. and the corridor from Toronto to Quebec City. Conceivably, more pipelines could be built straight from Alberta and Saskatchewan to the U.S. and bypass extra controversy.
A few less direct options are also in the works. Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith unveiled a plan for a 3,300 km oil pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta to Sarnia, Ontario and it wouldn’t take much work to get that oil stateside. Also, the Keystone XL pipeline is being reimagined as the South Bow Bridger Pipeline Project. Each of these would deliver more than 500,000 barrels of oil per day.
Hoekstra said the U.S. has other options but will need to find three to four million barrels more barrels of oil per day over the next decade. No one can make a better offer than Canada. We have been so poor at increasing our tidewater oil exports that American buyers know they have a captive market. This means Canada typically sold to the states at a discount of $18-$25 U.S. per barrel. Thankfully, since the TMX expansion, that has shrunk to $10-$15 per barrel.
An expanded oil export market for Canada and a cheap source for a needy U.S. is clearly a win-win. Now it’s just a question of whether Canadian and American negotiators can make it happen.
