A much larger story is developing around Greenland, Venezuela, Panama, Cuba, and Canada than any one trade dispute or diplomatic quarrel. Taken all together, a definite pattern emerges.The US appears increasingly determined to protect a North American strategic perimeter built around four interests: secure energy, secure critical minerals, secure transportation routes, and no hostile military or intelligence infrastructure within the continent. In Canada, China is touching on each one. When the US repeatedly raises the same strategic concerns, from the Caribbean to the Arctic, it is difficult to dismiss them as unrelated.Let's start with energy. A continental power does not want its essential supply dependent upon a strategic competitor, particularly as the world becomes, according to Mark Carney, “more dangerous and divided.” But Venezuela demonstrates the point on energy. China imported roughly 470,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan crude in 2025 and invested billions in the country's petroleum industry. Washington is now encouraging American companies, much to Alberta’s detriment, back into Venezuela while limiting Chinese and Russian participation. It is clear that America is not trying to end ordinary commerce with China. It is increasingly distinguishing between trade and strategic dependence. Buying consumer goods from China is one thing. Allowing a rival power long-term leverage over the energy system supplying your continent is quite another.Alberta needs to pay more attention. Our province already sits inside the American energy system, whether Ottawa likes it or not. Alberta exported roughly $151.5 billion in goods to the US in 2025, and we now export over 4 million bbls per day. .The second issue is critical minerals, where China has even greater leverage. China continues to dominate the processing of many minerals essential to batteries, electronics, advanced weapons, communications systems, and manufacturing. Reuters recently reported that China controls roughly 70% to 95% of the refining of several critical minerals, while its share of rare earth refining remained around 85% in 2025. This is no longer simply an industrial policy issue. It is now national security. Alberta has geological potential in lithium, vanadium, rare earth elements, uranium, potash, helium, and other strategic resources. Some remain underexplored or commercially unproven, so we should not pretend Alberta is ready to replace China. But the opportunity is substantial enough that Alberta's own strategy specifically identifies participation in Alberta-US critical mineral supply chains as an objective. Washington therefore has every reason to encourage reliable North American supplies rather than remain dependent on Chinese processing. The Americans do not need ideological lectures from us. They need oil, gas, minerals, processing capacity, and dependable partners.The third concern is transportation. Panama is perhaps the clearest example. Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison operated the Balboa and Cristóbal terminals at opposite ends of the Panama Canal through its Panama Ports subsidiary. Panama's Supreme Court subsequently invalidated the concession, and the ports were transferred to interim operators amid heavy American pressure to reduce Chinese strategic influence around the canal. Washington cares because these are not simply two commercial ports. They sit beside one of the world's most important maritime chokepoints, carrying roughly 5% of global maritime commerce. In a serious confrontation, which many believe is coming, commercial infrastructure becomes strategic infrastructure. The same logic applies throughout North America. Ports, railways, pipelines, Arctic shipping routes and airspace, telecommunications systems, and transportation corridors can no longer be viewed only as commercial assets. They are now all part of the North American security and defence infrastructure..The fourth issue is hostile military and intelligence gathering. Cuba sits barely 90 miles from Florida. The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (not our CSIS) has identified four Cuban facilities it assesses as likely supporting Chinese intelligence collection. Satellite imagery released in June showed further development at Bejucal, including a large antenna array capable of intercepting and locating radio transmissions. Now look north. The September 18 agreement between the US, Denmark, and Greenland expands American military access while restricting bases and sensitive investment involving non-NATO adversaries. China and Russia are the obvious strategic concern. Greenland matters because it guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America and has considerable mineral potential. The pattern is difficult to miss: Cuba in the south, Greenland in the north, Panama controlling a maritime crossroads, and Venezuela holding enormous energy resources. The main objective is to prevent China from gaining strategic leverage inside the North American perimeter and to defend that perimeter robustly.Let's have a look at Canada under that premise. We remain a NATO ally, NORAD partner, and deeply integrated economic and security partner of the US. At the same time, this Liberal government is simultaneously pursuing a substantial economic reset with Beijing. In January, Canada agreed to permit an initial quota of 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles (EV) annually at the normal 6.1% tariff rather than the previous 100% surtax. Ottawa openly hopes the arrangement will encourage Chinese joint-venture investment in Canada's EV manufacturing and supply chain. That is exactly the kind of development Washington will be concerned about. US automakers are urging the Trump administration to maintain restrictions on Chinese vehicles because they see both an industrial threat and security risks tied to connected-vehicle technology. The US has spent years trying to reduce Chinese involvement in sensitive technology and supply chains, while Canada is reopening the door to Chinese automotive investment. Our own CSIS is hardly relaxed about China. CSIS reported that the People's Republic of China remained one of the principal perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage in Canada in 2025, and a September 2026 assessment described China as the most active foreign-interference state in Canada in scale and scope. The agency has also warned about Chinese interest in the Canadian Arctic and attempts to obtain proprietary, classified, and military information. .This all creates obvious tension. Ottawa wants greater Chinese trade and investment, while its own intelligence service warns that Beijing is conducting extensive interference and espionage activities in Canada. Those facts coexist, and ignoring the security implications and the impact on our southern neighbours would be remarkably naive.Now let's bring Alberta into this discussion. We have the one commodity America will keep needing in enormous quantities, reliable energy, along with significant agricultural production, potential critical minerals, sophisticated infrastructure, and direct economic connections throughout the Western US. The US dwarfs every other Alberta export market. For supporters of Alberta independence, that creates a geopolitical argument quite different from the familiar debates over equalization, pipelines, or federal-provincial quarrels. Our case is that an independent Alberta would not be turning away from North America. Instead, it would position itself deliberately within the North American economic and security architecture, negotiating directly with Washington on energy, critical minerals, defence, infrastructure, and continental trade rather than filtering those relationships through Ottawa and its pro-Chinese lens.We sit beside the largest economy and military power on Earth. We possess enormous energy resources that help power it, potential minerals it increasingly considers strategic, and infrastructure already deeply integrated with the continental economy. If Washington's emerging priority is a secure perimeter built around dependable energy, reliable minerals, protected transportation corridors, and the exclusion of hostile intelligence and military infrastructure, Alberta sits almost exactly where those interests intersect.The more interesting geopolitical question may now be: what role could an independent Alberta play inside a North America reorganizing itself around security, energy, and strategic independence from China and Russia?That question does not settle Alberta's constitutional debate. But it makes the debate much bigger than Ottawa, equalization, or another pipeline fight. It puts Alberta where geography has always placed us: at the centre of North America's resource and security architecture.
