Prime Minister Mark Carney has set a clear standard for Canada’s response to President Trump’s trade war: retaliatory tariffs should hit the U.S. hard, while minimizing harm at home. This pragmatic approach ensures Canada stands firm without inflicting unnecessary damage on its own economy. If we must engage in this battle, we must be strategic.
With the U.S. imposing 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum and threats of future tariffs, Canada faces tough choices. But retaliation should be more than a reflex — it should reinforce our values, chart a smarter path forward, and sow unity rather than division. As the Prime Minister also emphasized in his acceptance speech, fostering unity and a sense of the common good can be just as, if not more important, than immediate threats.
Few tariff targets meet Carney’s criteria more than American thermal coal.
Tariffs on this highly polluting fossil fuel would send a strong message to President Trump and U.S. coal producers, while sparing Canadian consumers any direct costs. At the same time, the proposal enjoys cross-partisan support and aligns with Canada’s climate commitments – exemplifying stability over chaos.
With the mounting evidence of its dire impacts on our climate and human health, Americans, and increasingly the world, are turning their backs on coal. States in the Pacific Northwest have refused to build coal export infrastructure necessary for market access, effectively landlocking thermal coal from Montana’s Powder River Basin, if not for Canada.
For years, our federally controlled ports have provided a lifeline to this otherwise landlocked coal. While this makes U.S. coal miners happy, residents in B.C.’s Lower Mainland are paying the costs — forced to put up with the inconvenience, health implications, and environmental harms of coal trains rumbling through their communities. Bailing out one of the world’s dirtiest fossil fuels and a key driver of climate change also goes against the demands of the millions of British Columbians calling for urgent climate action.
Our government has already committed to phasing out thermal coal by 2030, and even one of the export terminal owners has acknowledge the need to quickly transition away from thermal coal. Buoying up an outdated and environmentally-harmful industry made little sense in times of strong friendship with our southern neighbour — it makes no sense today.
As Canadians have heard repeatedly, tariffs on American goods can harm not only American producers but Canadian consumers. As necessary as retaliatory tariffs might be, no one is denying that they can make life more expensive. This is why targeting American thermal coal is so strategic — unlike most we import, Canadian consumers will not be directly impacted. Because thermal coal simply passes through Canada on its way to foreign buyers, it is those buyers and American coal companies who will shoulder the cost of the tariffs. A tariff on thermal American coal won’t show up on our grocery bills, making it a uniquely easy choice to top the list of tariff targets.
Secondly, targeting American thermal coal from the reliably Red States of Montana and Wyoming will send a strong message to the man behind this needless trade war. Not only would this compromise the industry, but in doing so, it might push two states in President Trump’s heartland to call for an end to hurtful tariffs on both side of the border.
It’s hard to think of another commodity that would so perfectly fit Prime Minister Carney’s criteria of minimizing impacts in Canada and sending as strong message to the U.S.
But tariffs on thermal coal are strategic beyond this moment in our trade spat with the Americans. They show how, as a country, we can advance a future that is consistent with our values.
Trade wars are just one of the agents of chaos that Trump and his cronies have unleashed in their crusade against global stability. In one of his first actions in office, Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement and promises to rip up every climate policy he can get his hand on. Trump’s war on the environment is not just to please his coal baron buddies, but rather it is part and parcel with his credo of chaos. Fuelling the climate crisis will drive the planet towards more instability — giving rise to the types of circumstances that breed the very authoritarian regimes Trump favours. If Canada and the allies of stability around the world are going to triumph against this threat we must not only resist this worldview, but do so by fortifying our vision of a stable, prosperous, and fair world.
In a world that seems at times impossibly polarized, this proposal has remarkably attracted support from politicians across the spectrum. In response to a proposal advanced by B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad, B.C.’s NDP Premier David Eby has asked the federal Liberals, themselves committed to ending thermal coal exports, to slap tariffs on U.S. thermal coal.
Any implementation of thermal coal tariffs must exemplify another deeply held value: we also don’t leave anyone behind. Having the backs of port workers impacted by a trade war and making any corporate assistance contingent on transitioning to 21st century commodities is how we build a better future.
The trade war we find ourselves engulfed in is going to involve some difficult decisions. But, if tariffs are going to be imposed, targeting U.S. thermal coal is an easy choice. Let’s minimize harm to Canada, send a clear message to Trump, and stand united in the values that define us.
Fraser Thomson is a public interest climate and energy lawyer in Toronto, Canada. He has acted as counsel to citizens in B.C.’s Lower Mainland opposing coal export facilities.
This opinion piece was originally published in the Vancouver Sun on March 18, 2025.
