Ontario Premier Doug Ford is threatening to shut off electricity exports to the United States as the latest trade fight between Canada and President Trump turns increasingly nasty.
Ford raised the stakes Monday after the United States imposed a 50 percent tariff on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods following the collapse of trade negotiations. Rather than respond with another round of polite diplomatic statements, Ford reached for one of Ontario’s biggest bargaining chips: energy.
“We power 1.5 million homes and businesses. Everything’s on the table. I’ll do whatever it takes,” Ford said at a news conference.
“You won’t get a grain of sand out of Ontario,” he added.
That is quite a threat considering Ontario sends electricity across the border to Michigan, New York and Minnesota. Ford also suggested Ontario could restrict American access to critical minerals from the province.
In other words, the tariff dispute is rapidly moving beyond politicians arguing about percentages and press releases. Ford is threatening resources that American homes and businesses actually use, which is the sort of move that can turn an ugly trade dispute into an even uglier economic confrontation.
Ottawa had already announced plans for retaliatory tariffs before Ford decided to put Ontario’s electricity and mineral exports on the negotiating table.
President Trump, unsurprisingly, did not respond with diplomatic poetry.
Writing on Truth Social, Trump called Ford the “overall unimpressive brother of the late, great, Rob Ford,” referring to the former Toronto mayor and city councilman who died in 2016.
Trump also blamed Canada’s predicament on “bad leadership” from Prime Minister Mark Carney and “Flunky Ford.”
He urged Canada’s leaders to “fall in line.”
Ford’s response?
“kiss my a–.”
So much for the quiet, dignified world of international diplomacy.
Ford’s threat is not entirely new. During another trade dispute last year, the Ontario premier similarly threatened to use electricity exports as leverage against the United States. That confrontation eventually cooled after Ford met with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and the two sides pursued bilateral discussions.
Whether cooler heads can produce the same result this time remains to be seen.
Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre is already calling for Parliament to return as the economic stakes increase.
“As Canadians are vulnerable to an escalating trade war with the United States, Parliament must be reconvened. Canadians deserve answers on how trade talks collapsed, what tariffs will cost their families, and how their jobs will be protected,” Poilievre said Monday.
That gets closer to the real issue than the insult contest.
Trade wars have consequences. Tariffs raise costs, retaliatory tariffs raise more costs, and threatening electricity exports introduces another potential headache for businesses and consumers on both sides of the border.
Ford may believe threatening America’s power supply gives Ontario leverage, but President Trump has spent years making clear that economic threats against the United States are unlikely to make him quietly retreat.
Canada now has a choice between finding a path back to negotiations or continuing an escalation in which both countries start looking for new ways to make the other side hurt.
At some point, somebody has to remember that Canada and the United States are supposed to be neighbors and major trading partners, not two guys screaming over a property line because somebody’s maple tree dropped leaves on the wrong lawn.
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