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.

[–] smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works 33 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Canada wants to play nice with the USA, so they are being firm yet polite. Cutting the power would not be nice, and only make Cheeto angry.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

firm yet polite.

It'd be so nice if other world leaders knew how to do this. Seems like right now we have a lot of big egos, and small penis's bring their energy to the world stage right now.

[–] KammicRelief@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

peni

[–] smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 weeks ago

I believe the biological term is flagella.

[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 12 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I think they’re saving that one, and don’t want to be that aggressive unless it’s necessary.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Pretty much. It's in the mix of what's being discussed, but the actual strategy is to gradually turn up the heat. Throwing everything at once would do enough damage to probably provoke a military invasion, and would leave us no leverage going forwards.

In fact, Trump has backed down enough we're not even deploying the second wave of tariffs (until his next freak-out).

[–] mkwt@lemmy.world 11 points 4 weeks ago

In addition to the other reasons already stated, Canada doesn't have the capacity to store up the power and sell it back later when things turn around.

So if they did just pull the plug, they would also have to stop generating the power, and Canada would lose our on that revenue.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago

Turning off the power would directly hurt residents who need the power for heating, daily activities, and in some cases medical equipment. It would look like a jerk move on Canada's part, because it would be in response to economic conflits.

Tariffs are a response to tariffs, and show that Canada means what they say without anyone losing power.

[–] Kaboom@reddthat.com -1 points 4 weeks ago

Because it would invalidate their threat, and make them look stupid.

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world -1 points 4 weeks ago

Why doesn’t Canada commit mass murder. How could this go wrong?