Canada!
Source: Oilsandsmagazine.com.
In fact, in 2025, 61% of total US petroleum imports come from Canada (by dollar value). According to ITA, 100% of Wisconsin imports come from Canada.
Several states (including Wisconsin) get electricity from Canada. Maine gets about 30% from Canada.
* Full disclosure: I drive an internal combustion engine vehicle.
Trump says we don’t need Canada. Now come Menzie – do you really need fossil fuels? Renewables! Whoops – did Trump really advocate that?
Our imports from Canada are only 115% of our exports so remind me – how did that April 2, 2025 clown chart from this White House come up with its magic tariff? Canada is the worst according to Trump but his own clown chart says otherwise.
I do think that the toddler-in-chief is behaving differently nowadays than he has in the past. His actions are of a similar nature, but the motivation and process have changed.
He has always bullied, always favored competition over cooperation. In the past, though, he had intermediate goals in mind, toward the ultimate goals of self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement and power. The intermediate goals had to be tactically successful to be of use.
These days, he seems to be lashing out without concern for intermediate goals. Bullying China was meant to win a “better deal”, however mistaken that effort. Renaming NAFTA was meant to replace Clinton’s name with his own. Withdrawing from the Iran oil-for-nukes deal was meant to erase Obama’s achievement, so that the toddler would be seen as in charge. Tearing down part of the White House and replacing it with a Mar-el-Lago-esque monstrosity is a monument to himself, a permanent part of every future presidency. The latest nonsense with Canada, threatening to tear down the Kennedy Center, going to war with Iran and then going back to war after the MOU was signed – these all seem less calculated to achieve any ultimate goal and more like immediate gratification. Sure, the toddler’s eating and screwing and lying habits have always shown a zeal for immediate gratification, but he spent years preparing to run for the presidency and more years preparing to win after loosing. Despite his many business failures, he managed to have a successful TV career. He once had the capacity to think things through. That capacity seems lacking now.
OOOOH sh!t. Tariffs on toilet paper from Canada. Now Trump stepped in it. This is like the shoe bomber but much worse – especially because it is our own president doing it to us. It’s probably the main reason Carney left the negotiation table – he really wants us to suffer. OH CANADA!!!!!
Off topic – Another country is asking for U.S. help to stabilize its currency:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-25/pakistan-seeks-10-billion-us-facility-expects-reply-soon
Pakistan has asked Treasury for a $10 billion foreign exchange facility. Two things come to mind: 1) High oil and fertilizer prices, rising U.S. borrowing rates and the like are destabilizing FX markets; 2) Pakistan is cashing in on its diplomatic efforts with Iran.
The U.S. imports about 4 million barrels of oil per day from Canada.
— americangeosciences.org
— afpm.org
In 2025, the US exported more crude oil and petroleum products than it imported.
Petroleum and petroleum product exports totaled about 10.7 million barrels per day, while imports were about 7.9 million barrels a day. That’s a -2.8 million barrel a day difference.
As of March 2026—the most recent data available—the US has exported 38.7% more oil than it has imported.
https://usafacts.org/articles/is-the-us-a-bigger-oil-importer-or-exporter/
Just as the US imports Canadian oil because of the type of oil used in US refineries, Canada imports US oil as well.
“2025 Barrels/day
Canada → U.S. ~3.9 million
U.S. → Canada ~0.38 million
Net Canada → U.S. ~3.5 million
That’s roughly 10 barrels flowing from Canada to the U.S. for every 1 barrel flowing the other direction.
The dollar value is also heavily one-sided: Canadian crude exports to the U.S. were about $126 billion in 2025, versus about $13.2 billion of Canadian crude imports from the U.S.
One important nuance: Canada still imports U.S. oil despite being a huge oil exporter because of refinery geography and the different types of crude that particular refineries are designed to process. It’s not simply a case of Canada “needing” U.S. oil overall.
Nothing is ever as simple as it first seems.
———
Interestingly, the 10:1 ratio of Canada exports to US versus import from US corresponds roughly to the differences in population. So the differences in import/export volumes scale about the same.
• If you’re asking because of the Canada/U.S. oil numbers, Canada has about 41 million people, versus ~343 million in the U.S.
chatgpt.com
Bruce Hall: The point is that the Midwest relies on Canadian oil. None of what you write rebuts that point.
“Canadian sour crude alternatives include heavy sour grades from Mexico (Maya), Venezuela (BCF 17), and the Middle East (Basrah Heavy), which refiners consider when Western Canadian Select (WCS) prices rise due to tariffs or supply constraints.”
— kansascityfed.org
— energynow.com
And then there is this: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx24n8eqzgyo
“Now the oil is flowing again in Venezuela. In March, the country’s monthly crude exports surpassed one million barrels per day. The first time since September.
As the world reels from the impact on global energy prices caused by Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz, big oil and gas companies like Chevron are now importing Venezuelan crude oil by the shipload.”
ideally, the US would not be placing trade barriers on Canadian oil and Canada would not be placing trade barriers on Wisconsin cheese. But trade is often not ideal, is it? Canada should be careful. One-sided protectionism just met national self-interest.
It’s totally weird that Bruce goes through all of those words to emphasize the nuances that make imports of Canadian oil essential to the mid-West — and then concludes by dismissing it all as unimportant.
Why is it that Trump only talks about the trade deficit in goods (about $48 billion) and never about the trade surplus in services (about $29 billion).
I mean, if Canada is ripping us off by delivering goods, how is the US not ripping off Canada by delivering services? And if you want to compare, Canada is giving us durable tangible goods while the US is giving Canada mostly just ephemeral services as data bits.
Even more weird is that he is demanding foreign countries do “investments” in the US. If a country sell more than it purchases from US then they have to place that surplus money somewhere in the US, eventually. I would love to know what the trade negotiators from other countries think when Trump demands they invest in US. Have they learned to say “oh yes President Trump, we surrender – you have forced us to comply and invest in the US – nobody ever forced us to invest in US like you have done”
The percent of net imports makes the situation make more dramatic than it really is. Total US refinery runs are about 16 MM bopd. Net imports from Canada are 4 MM bopd. So about 25%. Definitely not nothing…but not “61%” (from the net imports metric).
It’s important to remember that the US used to import over 10 MM bopd. We have three coastlines and a lot of ability to import from oceanic trade (and distribute it inland, but mostly to the refineries at the Gulf of Mexico.) So…if Canada fell off the planet it would suck…but we would replace the volumes.
Canada has a much bigger issue in that they are extremely dependent on us and don’t have adequate infrastructure to move oil to the coasts! And it takes years to build more…and they have struggled to overcome regulatory and such hurdles from the anti pipeline crowd. About 75% of Canadian crude production (total production, not exports!) goes to the US market.
I don’t even know why this being discussed though. Free trade right? Let goods flow!