At least she knows he’s reading.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith kept up her gentle persuasion campaign against US energy tariffs by reposting articles from American news media warning of the harms to Midwest refiners — and consumers — from higher prices on imported oil from Canada.
“No matter how much oil the United States pumps - and it already is the top producer in the world by far — its refineries were designed to run on a blend of different types of oil. Many can't function well without the darker, denser, cheaper crude that is hard to find domestically… Canada is flush with that oil, known as heavy crude,” she posted on Twitter (“X”).
The passage in question was pulled from a New York Times article that was published last week.
In it, the authors note that big US refiners in cities like Whiting, OH, will either be forced to find alternative supplies or cut production of products like gasoline and diesel, driving up prices for consumers.
About two thirds, or some 3.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of Canada’s 4 million bpd of oil exports to the US go to a half dozen major refineries in the landlocked Midwest.
The rest makes its way to the Gulf Coast, which has considerably more flexibility in where it obtains heavy oil supplies — including Mexico and Venezuela.
Smith has consistently argued that those barrels, worth about USD$100 billion, are converted into $300 billion worth of products, making it an attractive value proposition for American manufacturers and consumers.
The article also details how US industry associations like the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers that were some of the biggest donors to president Donald Trump’s election campaign, have lobbied for exemptions to the tariffs.
“You can't turn the Titanic on a dime, and the industry is kind of the same way," it quotes Rick Weyen, a retired refining executive who worked at the BP Whiting refinery refinery in the 1980s and '90s — when refiners spent billions to reconfigure their facilities to take Canadian heavy crude.
Ultimately, the article suggests that pressure campaign was one of the reasons he temporarily lowered the burden on Canadian oil to 10% from 25% — although it’s scheduled to go up again on March 4.
The problem is that the article is unlikely to win over The Donald, even if he managed to read it. That’s because he’s consistently branded the Times — and most mainstream news outlets — as “fake news” and the “enemy of the people” since he was first elected in 2016.
He reiterated that position again after the 'Grey Lady' suggested he was "unfit" to be president in the days prior to the election.