Trump says US doesn't need Canada as 4 million barrels of oil flow south daily

Trump imposed 50% aluminum tariff while acknowledging US needs Canadian metal

President Donald Trump said this week that the United States does not need Canada. About 4 million barrels of Canadian crude cross into the United States each day to supply American vehicles, trucks, aircraft and industry, according to an Associated Press dispatch from Toronto.

The crude flow sits within a wider set of economic ties between the two countries. Canada also supplies aluminum, potash to American farms and auto parts for a vehicle industry built across the shared border, the AP reported.

In a post this week, Trump repeated his longstanding assertion that the United States does not need Canada and that Canada is the country that needs the United States. The statement came as his administration has imposed tariffs on Canadian goods.

Yet Trump has imposed a 50% tariff on Canadian aluminum while acknowledging that the United States needs that metal. According to the AP, Trump said the country needs aluminum desperately and that the United States does not have enough of it domestically. He added that the U.S. gets almost all of its aluminum from Canada, mostly, and needs it a great deal.

The AP reported that the gap between Trump’s rhetoric and his tariff actions illustrates how tightly the U.S. and Canadian economies remain linked, and how much could be at risk if what the AP characterized as a “trade war” extends beyond energy into materials and supply chains the United States still depends on Canada to provide.

The dispatch was written by AP correspondent Rob Gillies in Toronto.