Explain Like I'm Five

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ELI5 Why doesn't Canada just turn off all the power it supplies to the states? Would that not show the Cheeto who is actually in charge of most infrastructures? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 month ago

I'll add a few.

Canada supplies power to a lot of states, yes, but last year Canada was actually a net importer of energy (not necessarily electricity) from the US. And we could actually end up worse off.

Canada mostly supplies power to blue states: Minnesota, New York, etc. At the moment, we are not aligned in opposition to those states, and it would hurt them the most. It may actually set them against Canada, and we need all the allies inside the US that we can get. See also: Canadian retaliatory tarrifs tend to target red states.

Finally: it might be used by the US as rhetoric to justify actual war. So caution is required. This is as close as we can get to the nuclear option on trade (embargoing resources), so it should be held in reserve as long as possible.