America First Needs Canada
Canada is not a threat to American strategic autonomy.
It is one of its greatest assets.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly made his position clear: the United States does not need Canada.
“We don’t need their cars. We don’t need their energy. We don’t need their lumber. We don’t need anything that they give.”
At first glance, the argument may seem difficult to challenge.
The United States is the world’s leading economic and military power. It has extraordinary natural resources, produces more oil than any other country, and possesses unmatched industrial, technological and financial capacity.
Of course America could learn to function without Canada.
But that is the wrong question.
The better question is:
At what cost, over what period of time, and by becoming dependent on whom instead?
Because once we stop looking only at bilateral trade balances and start examining the supply chains underpinning American power, a very different picture emerges.
Canada is not a threat to American strategic autonomy. It is one of its greatest assets.
Paradoxically, the best way to understand this may be to take America First seriously.
America First — but with whose resources?
If America First means strengthening U.S. energy security, rebuilding domestic manufacturing, securing critical supply chains, reducing dependence on China and Russia, and reinforcing the defense industrial base, then the origin and security of strategic resources matter as much as their price.
Consider a few of them.
The oil powering America’s industrial heartland
The United States is the world’s largest oil producer.
That might suggest Canadian oil is easily replaceable.
It isn’t.
In 2025, the United States imported an average of approximately 3.9 million barrels of Canadian crude oil per day.
Canada remains, by far, America’s largest foreign source of crude oil.
More importantly, much of the Midwest refining system has been integrated with Canadian pipelines for decades, with refineries configured to process the heavy crude produced in Western Canada.
Not all crude oil is the same. Neither are all refineries.
Replacing that relationship isn’t simply a matter of producing a few million additional barrels in Texas.
It means considering refinery configurations, pipelines, transportation, geography, investment and the cost of substitution.
And the states most exposed are not necessarily California and New York.
They include much of the Midwest and Mountain West — the industrial and political heartland of America.
Saskatchewan helps feed America
Then there is a resource that receives far less attention: potash.
Yet modern agriculture depends on it.
In 2025, the United States relied on imports for approximately 92% of its potash consumption.
Between 2021 and 2024, Canada supplied 79% of U.S. potash imports, far ahead of Russia at 12%.
The supply chain is remarkably straightforward:
Saskatchewan → potash → fertilizer → American agriculture.
Corn. Soybeans. Wheat.
Iowa. Nebraska. Kansas. The Dakotas. Montana. The Midwest.
Once again, we are talking about America’s agricultural heartland.
The United States can certainly look for alternative suppliers.
But if the strategic objective is to reduce America’s exposure to adversarial or geopolitically risky powers, replacing Canadian supply with greater dependence on Russia would be an unusual definition of strategic autonomy.
Then there is uranium
In 2024, 36% of the uranium delivered to U.S. nuclear power plant operators originated in Canada.
U.S. domestic production represented only 8%.
That matters increasingly.
America is looking to nuclear power as electricity demand rises, driven in part by data centers and artificial intelligence.
At the same time, Washington is trying to reduce its historical dependence on Russian uranium.
So again, the relevant question isn’t:
Can America find uranium somewhere else?
Of course it can.
The question is:
From whom would America prefer to secure a strategic resource for the next several decades?
Russia?
Kazakhstan?
Or Saskatchewan?
Geography matters.
So do alliances.
Canadian water is also a battery
Hydroelectricity adds another dimension to the relationship.
Canada doesn’t simply have an extraordinary amount of water.
It has vast hydroelectric reservoirs, significant elevation changes and considerable ability to determine when some of that stored water is converted into electricity.
That flexibility becomes increasingly valuable as grids incorporate more wind and solar generation.
The sun and wind produce energy when conditions permit.
A hydroelectric reservoir can store potential energy and, within operational constraints, generate when the grid needs it.
For the northeastern United States, Quebec’s enormous reservoirs increasingly resemble a continental-scale natural battery.
And this is no longer theoretical.
In 2026, two major new transmission links totaling 2,450 MW increased the capacity to deliver Quebec hydroelectricity into New England and New York.
During the July 3 heat wave, Canadian imports supplied 9% of New York State’s electricity demand.
As data centers, AI and electrification increase electricity consumption, the strategic value of dispatchable energy located immediately across the border is unlikely to diminish.
It may become substantially more important.
The raw materials of American power
Then come the minerals.
Aluminum.
Zinc.
Copper.
Nickel.
Cobalt.
Graphite.
Germanium.
Niobium.
Uranium.
These are not simply commodities.
They are inputs into the modern technological, energy and military economy.
They go into aircraft, engines, satellites, radar systems, military vehicles, electronics, electrical grids and advanced technologies.
And the U.S. Geological Survey’s own numbers are revealing.
The United States relies on imports for approximately 60% of its aluminum consumption.
Between 2021 and 2024, Canada supplied 56% of U.S. aluminum imports.
Canada also represents important shares of U.S. imported supplies of zinc, niobium, germanium, refined copper and natural graphite.
That matters enormously in a world where Washington is explicitly trying to build supply chains less dependent on China.
Consider aluminum alone.
Canada — and Quebec in particular — combines industrial infrastructure with the massive amounts of hydroelectricity required to produce primary aluminum.
America can certainly build more capacity domestically.
But new smelters require enormous quantities of electricity, billions of dollars in capital and years of development.
Which brings us to an important distinction.
The right measure of strategic dependence is not:
“Can this theoretically be replaced?”
Almost anything can.
The better questions are:
How much will replacement cost? How long will it take? And what new dependency will it create?
North American defense is already integrated
There is another reality often overlooked in this debate.
For more than 70 years, Canada and the United States have deliberately integrated significant parts of their defense industrial bases.
Aerospace.
Engines.
Military vehicles.
Munitions.
Space.
Simulation.
Artificial intelligence.
Cybersecurity.
Today, more than 60% of Canadian defense exports go to the United States.
And above all of this sits NORAD.
Since 1958, two sovereign countries have jointly organized the defense of the North American continent.
That is hardly the relationship one maintains with a strategically irrelevant neighbor.
Even our cars aren’t really Canadian or American anymore
The automotive industry illustrates the limitations of viewing trade through purely national boundaries.
Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky form part of a deeply integrated manufacturing ecosystem.
Components can cross the border multiple times during production before a finished vehicle rolls off an assembly line.
So when a tariff is imposed on a Canadian component entering Michigan, it doesn’t necessarily tax a foreign competitor.
It may be taxing an input that an American worker needs to build an American product.
In a continental supply chain, the political border and the economic border are no longer necessarily the same thing.
Now look at the electoral map
This is where the argument becomes particularly interesting.
Canadian oil is especially important to the Midwest and Mountain West.
Canadian potash feeds the Farm Belt.
Canadian uranium supplies America’s nuclear power system.
Automotive supply chains run through Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.
Canadian metals and components feed manufacturing, aerospace and defense.
Many of these regions are also at the political heart of Donald Trump’s America.
That is why the Canada-U.S. relationship shouldn’t be understood simply as a disagreement between Ottawa and Washington.
Behind the trade statistics are Nebraska farmers, Midwest refiners, Michigan auto workers, manufacturers and communities throughout the United States.
Let’s also be clear: Canada needs America more
Canadians should not answer American economic nationalism with economic denial of our own.
The relationship is asymmetric.
In 2025, 71.7% of Canadian merchandise exports went to the United States.
A prolonged trade war would therefore hurt Canada disproportionately.
But asymmetry does not mean an absence of strategic value.
A smaller economy can possess assets that matter greatly to a much larger one.
And Canada possesses a remarkable combination:
Energy.
Oil.
Uranium.
Potash.
Hydroelectricity.
Aluminum.
Critical minerals.
Forests.
Industrial capabilities.
Technology.
And something no industrial policy can manufacture:
Geography.
5,525 miles of strategic advantage
America can source almost all of these resources elsewhere.
But “elsewhere” usually means farther away.
By ship instead of pipeline.
Across strategic maritime chokepoints.
With larger security inventories.
From less predictable governments.
Through supply chains more vulnerable to geopolitical conflict.
Canada offers a combination that is difficult to replicate:
Energy, agricultural inputs, uranium, strategic minerals, industrial capabilities and technology from an allied democracy sharing 5,525 miles of border with the United States — already connected through pipelines, railways, transmission lines, highways and integrated industrial supply chains.
No ocean to cross.
No strategic strait to defend.
No hostile regime to persuade.
The infrastructure already exists.
We are already here.
Perhaps we should simply take America First to its logical conclusion
I understand the American desire to secure supply chains.
To produce more domestically.
To protect critical technologies.
To reduce dependence on China.
To stop relying on Russia for strategic resources.
And to rebuild industrial capacity.
But those objectives do not necessarily make Canada less relevant.
They may make Canada more relevant.
American strategic autonomy does not require every mine, refinery, power plant and factory to sit inside the territorial borders of the United States.
It requires the resources underpinning American power to come through supply chains that are secure, resilient and dependable.
That is precisely where Canada has exceptional strategic value.
Canada is not a threat to American strategic autonomy. It is one of its greatest assets.
The political objective may remain America First.
Fair enough.
But when it comes to energy, critical resources, food security, defense and economic resilience, one of the smartest ways to achieve it may be:
North America First.
Because in the 21st century, power will not be measured only by what a country can produce alone.
It will also be measured by the quality of the resources, infrastructure and allies it can rely upon when the world becomes less predictable.
And by that measure, the United States has long possessed an extraordinary strategic advantage.
It sits directly north of its border.
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Sources & Data
The data and factual references in this article are drawn primarily from official U.S. and Canadian government sources:
U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) — U.S.–Canada crude oil trade and refinery supply; 2024 Uranium Marketing Annual Report; U.S.–Canada electricity trade and 2026 transmission developments involving New York and New England.
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 — U.S. import reliance and Canadian shares of supply for potash, aluminum, zinc, niobium, germanium, copper, graphite and other critical minerals.
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) — Nuclear energy, electricity-demand growth, data centers and the role of reliable generation in supporting AI-related power demand.
Congressional Research Service (CRS) — The integrated North American automotive industry and Canada–U.S. automotive trade.
U.S. Department of Defense / U.S.–Canada Defense Production Sharing framework — Integration of the North American defense industrial base.
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Government of Canada, Department of National Defence — Canada–U.S. continental defense cooperation and defense-industrial integration.
Statistics Canada — Canadian merchandise trade with the United States, including the share of Canadian exports destined for the U.S. market.
Figures reflect the latest official data available at the time of publication, generally covering 2024–2026 depending on the reporting series.
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