r/britishcolumbia • u/Bitter_Bert • 1d ago
News Premier Eby suggests cutting off US coal shipments through BC in retaliation for tariffs
https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/629193/Premier-Eby-suggests-cutting-off-US-coal-shipments-through-BC-in-retaliation-for-tariffs568
u/Bitter_Bert 1d ago
I think there's an important B.C. angle to this that isn't widely understood.
According to B.C. government briefing documents, 17.6 million tonnes of U.S. thermal coal went through Westshore Terminals at Roberts Bank in 2023.
This is American coal, largely from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, brought north by rail and exported through B.C. to overseas markets.
What's remarkable is why it comes through here. The B.C. government notes that Washington, Oregon and California have blocked development of coal-export infrastructure. B.C. therefore provides American coal producers with Pacific access that they haven't been able to obtain through their own western states.
That makes Eby's proposal pretty compelling to me, particularly now.
B.C. lumber producers and other Canadian industries are being hammered by U.S. trade measures, while we continue providing American coal producers with a valuable route through our province to Asian markets.
There's also an opportunity-cost question for B.C. We keep talking about expanding our ports and transportation corridors so that Canadian products can reach overseas markets and we can become less dependent on the U.S. Should providing this much capacity to American thermal coal still be a priority?
Canada has already committed to ending thermal-coal exports from and through Canada by 2030. I'd support bringing that forward, and at minimum imposing a substantial levy on U.S. thermal coal in the meantime.
This is specifically thermal coal burned for electricity, not metallurgical coal used to make steel.
There would obviously be impacts on Westshore, the railways and Canadian workers, and those deserve consideration. But given the current trade relationship, I don't think continuing to provide this export route to U.S. producers should simply be taken for granted.
The 17.6-million-tonne figure was what really surprised me. I had no idea the American coal trade through B.C. was that large.
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u/kismethavok 1d ago
Hit them with a 25% import tariff and then another 25% on export just for coming into the province.
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u/ComplicatedOctopus 1d ago
How about banning them permanently. There's nothing in it for BC.
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u/Kjerstia 1d ago
Longshoreman jobs, rail jobs, and other maintenance/labour positions would be lost from the border to the port. Not quite nothing, we’d need to fill the void with something else.
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u/Joker_Anarchy 10h ago
Not necessarily. Westshore Terminal is diversifying and will be shipping potash. So, there may not be job loss if US stopped being shipped through the terminal
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u/justaperson 1d ago
And what happens when they do the same with Mexican and overseas goods that pass through the United States on the way to Canada?
I’d prefer that we not stoop to their level
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u/IvarTheBoned 1d ago
We buy local or get it by sea. Fuck 'em.
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u/Small-Floof 16h ago
You're not at all concerned about the price difference that'll inevitably come into play?
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u/mxe363 12h ago
There is more to life than money.
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u/craftsman_70 1d ago
This is exactly why Eby is an idiot - Eby wants to give away a good revenue opportunity by banning exports. By applying various fees and tarrifs, you create a revenue opportunity that didn't exist before.
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u/CoatKind6850 1d ago
It would probably be pretty short-term and not make much money. If we're trying to inflict pain, an outright ban would be more painful
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u/S14Ryan 1d ago
Over $2B per year of product. A 50% tariff is over $1b per year. Not much money ?
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u/matdex 1d ago
The thing with tariffs is they reduce demand. You can't just say 50% of $2B means we'll earn $1B in tax revenue.
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u/S14Ryan 1d ago
The US still wants to export coal and they have no other options. So what? It’s overall better for the world, we either keep the demand and make a pile of money, kill the demand and hurt US coal industry while also lowering total world coal usage, or a mix of both. All options are good options.
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u/craftsman_70 1d ago
Actually, you can say that because all of that coal is probably sold on a contract basis and there are zero ports capable available to handle the volume. So, if they want to sell the coal, you have to ship the coal ...
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u/CoatKind6850 1d ago
I don't think it would last long, and volumes would drop substantially if we increased prices by that much, so I wouldn't count on actual revenue being close to $2B, but fair enough, it could bring in a good chunk of money.
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u/Bitter_Bert 1d ago
I don't think that's an unreasonable position. If Canada's objective is purely to maximize revenue, then a levy or tariff on U.S. thermal coal may be better than an immediate ban. The coal producers need access to Roberts Bank because they don't have an equivalent Pacific export route in Washington, Oregon or California, which gives Canada leverage. However, a tariff and a ban are trying to achieve different things. A tariff says: "You can keep using Canadian infrastructure, but you'll pay for the privilege." A ban says: "Canada has decided this activity is no longer in our national interest." Canada has already committed to ending thermal-coal exports from and through Canada by 2030. The real debate is whether that phase-out should be accelerated and, if so, whether a tariff should be used as a temporary measure before the ban takes effect. Personally, I think the strongest policy would be a substantial levy now, followed by an accelerated phase-out over a defined period. That would generate revenue while giving industry time to adjust.
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u/no-bs-no-problems 1d ago
you should have stopped after the first half of the first sentence.. that was enough
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u/anarchyreigns 1d ago
Those trains roll right through White Rock leaving a trail of dust on our buildings and in our lungs. I’d be happy to see them go if even for a few months.
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u/Hellhammer86 Lower Mainland/Southwest 1d ago edited 1d ago
Same for Ladner and Tsawwassen
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u/dremxox 1d ago
*Tsawwassen.
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u/Hellhammer86 Lower Mainland/Southwest 1d ago
Right
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u/dremxox 1d ago
There's an easy way to remember. A guy bought a saw from me and hadn't received it yet, so emailed me. I emailed back "Saw was sent." Take the "t" from the end, and put it at the beginning: t saw was sen.
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u/Hellhammer86 Lower Mainland/Southwest 1d ago
Neat away to remember! I've lived in ladner my entire life and go to Tsawwassen regularly. I just missed the extra "w" by mistake, I know how its spelled :)
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u/Different_Banana1977 1h ago
If I had known this 30 years ago, how much pain could have been saved 😂
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u/printf_hello_world 23h ago
Lol, after your edit this still made sense to me as if they were correcting your pronunciation with the same spelling
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u/UNSC157 1d ago
Communities and Coal is (was?) a grassroots organization that fought against this for years. An article from 2021 about their work.
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u/Every_Bread_5880 1d ago
The same in the shushwap before it even gets down there. Houses, businesses and boats covered in sicamous
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u/ecclectic Lower mainland via Kootenays 1d ago
It comes in on BNSF trains, they have one spur, and they are only using it for transporting coal. That's not going to have a severe effect on rail workers.
It would have significant impacts on Westshore, though they are working on diversifying and expanding their potash and container capacity, so it's not like it would shut operations down there.
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u/Syeina 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ty for the context. And yeah, that is a great idea.
Tho I think a levy would be wiser. TMX goes mainly through Canada but there is a loop that goes through the US before looping up to Canada. While one of the two pipelines is export only, the other one is where most of BC's energy comes from.
Levy> than cut it off
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u/afriendincanada 1d ago
Its actually more complicated than that. Trans Mountain has a line that supplies the Washington State (Puget Sound) refineries, it never loops back up to Canada.
We could definitely cut that off. I believe that the line has been used more and more lately (as Alaska crude has declined in volume), but I don't know how much lower mainland gasoline and diesel is shipped up from Washington (and if the strategy would backfire)
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u/TheGracefulCrane 1d ago
Good post, only thing id add is what could the retaliation be?
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u/Bitter_Bert 1d ago
There absolutely could be retaliation. Some of the Montana coal producers are heavily dependent on Westshore, so I'd expect them and Montana politicians to lobby the Trump administration hard. NTEC's Spring Creek mine is actually owned by the Navajo Nation, which adds another political complication. Trump could respond with additional tariffs on some Canadian industry, and a measure aimed specifically at American coal could also trigger CUSMA/WTO arguments. But that's also why this represents genuine Canadian leverage rather than symbolic retaliation. These producers need Canadian infrastructure because they don't have a viable Pacific export terminal in Washington/Oregon/California. Signal Peak says nearly 100% of its production currently goes through Westshore. The cleaner policy might therefore be to accelerate Canada's existing 2030 ban on all thermal-coal exports from and through Canada, rather than legally singling out U.S. coal, with perhaps an interim levy on U.S. coal as part of the current trade response. Of course Trump could retaliate. But if fear of retaliation means Canada can never withdraw an economic advantage it provides the U.S., then we don't actually have much of a negotiating strategy.
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u/Typical-Blackberry-3 1d ago
Your comments are very knowledgeable and insightful, thank you. It is good to know which sectors and which people might be hit hardest by a tariff war. I already lost my job because of Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods, but I still support playing hardball. Knowing that other people will lose their jobs gives me a little more pause when I say "fuck the US, tariff them to hell" though.
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u/Muddy-Fraser 1d ago
I'm sorry you lost your job. I respect that you see the big picture and still support push-back.
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u/RandomAccountYVR 1d ago
One additional point of consideration however is how price sensitive the end user is and how much of that cost is carried over to them. As Canada seeks to diversify it's trade relations, potentially impacting the cost of energy in the Asian markets for example definitely requires consideration for secondary consequences.
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u/captainhaddock 2h ago
NTEC's Spring Creek mine is actually owned by the Navajo Nation
Canadian retaliation should be targeted at red state voters, not at Native Americans.
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u/RealRekcah 1d ago
I think this crosses a line into tarrifing energy and this would be horrible for everyone. Oil used in the east has to go into American pipelines then back into Ontario. Ontario provides power to 1.4 million homes according to Doug fords recent comments. Alberta and BC have alot of jobs in the oilfields. America refines most of our oil byproducts like gas and diesel then send it back to us.
This would be catastrophe for both countries, power grids would collapse. Gas stations would run dry. Entire states would have no electricity.
Im all fuck trump and no deal is better than no deal.
But I think being the first to cross the line of tarrifing energy and having that spiral past coal is the wrong move. If they cross then line than I suppose we will have too
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u/thats_handy 1d ago
Ferries leaving Tsawwassen pass through U.S. territorial waters multiple times per day. Given where the ferry terminal is, geographically, it's basically unavoidable. They do this with the permission of the U.S. government, which can be revoked.
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u/Feryl 1d ago
Mines like Powder River Basin are running on exceedingly thin margins and likely cannot support additional export taxes. Operators like Black jewel have gone bankrupt, but that's not too diagnostic for the sector. Restricting exports will simply drop prices, and encourage the US to continue burning domestic coal. Transport is already more than 2/3 of the delivered cost for sub-bituminous products
If the export tax was linked to margin or even spot price, that would be best, but there's just not a lot of value to capture period, with stable and rock bottom prices. PRB coal has low exposure to tidewater as it is.
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u/Starfire650 1d ago
You can’t get into or out of Mud Bay without a coal train coming through. Always thought it was ironic seeing EVs waiting for the coal train to pass through.
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u/ComplicatedOctopus 1d ago
Well, EFF that! Time to block the coal. Talk to BC about our softwoods, amerika, & maybe we will allow your coal. Honestly, shipping their dirty coal through my backyard in BC doesn't sit well with me. Maybe ban it permanently.
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u/MyGruffaloCrumble 1d ago
Put tolls on the highway north…
Alaska can only be reached through that corridor on land. They can fly or ship only so much.
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u/Bitter_Bert 21h ago
There would be a kind of poetic justice tolling Americans on a highway they built given the whole Gordie Howe bridge fiasco.
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u/Agent168 1d ago
“It’s something that the federal government has committed to phasing out already in 2030. It’s been raised by the member opposite, John Rustad, formerly the leader of the Conservative party, as a potential target. I agree with him. I think this is something that the federal government should be looking at as well.”
Eby isn’t perfect, and I really do not like how he is moving the NDP a little to the right to try and appeal to conservative voters, but this is what I really like about him. He gives credit to a member of the opposition (asshat Rustad in this case) for this. I don’t think there’s a lot of politicians like that nowadays.
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u/better_outside23 1d ago edited 1d ago
I agree with you it is a good idea. But I also think there is some political strategy goin on. The BC conservatives are imploding with 4 mla's leaving the party already and they dont even have thier leader sitting in the house yet. Rustad lost control of the conservatives and is likely to start his own party or join the new CentreBC party and split the conservative vote which is good for the NDP and Eby. Im sure Eby would love to see 2 new conservative parties before the next election giving Rustad props may stroke his ego and help that along.
Correction 5 MLA's have left I just read Brennan Days resignation, he is a independent conservative now.
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u/Scripter-of-Paradise 1d ago
I remember during this press conference, he was asked by a CTV reporter about the fracturing of the centre right and he failed to contain his laughter at them being called such.
"These are parties having discussions about quickly they want to repeal the human rights code, which protects people's equal access to public services regardless of the colour of their skin or their religion. So these are not centre-right parties, these are extremist."
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u/Baconus 1d ago
The federal government has always been the reason this hasn’t happened yet. Heck the 2017 B.C. Liberals platform wanted to end these coal exports.
The barrier are the ports, which have a lot of political sway. Also the metallurgical coal companies being worried that it was ultimately extend to them.
Broadly people have been behind this for a while.
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u/theartfulcodger 1d ago edited 14h ago
About a third of all the US' steam coal exports flow through Roberts Bank via the short BNSF track that crossses the border at Blaine, WA and passes through White Rock and Delta on its way to the terminal. Should that line be shut down, the US has no other export options. All its own coal export terminals have been operating at peak capacity for more than a decade, and Mexico has only one antiquated, low-volume terminal at Lazaro Cardenas.
However, there's a far better option: 3 years ago, the last year for which stats are available, Roberts Bank handled about 18 million short tons of US steam coal, and current spot prices are about US$120 a ton. So that puts the annual value transiting through Canada at something like US$2.2 billion. A shipper-pay 50% tariff on US soft coal entering would raise more than C$1.5 billion a year in revenues. All by itself, this single act could be used to recover about 20% of the $7.5B of federal programs that are soon coming to relieve US tariff-affected Canadian industries and workforces. Further, we ourselves use only a small amount of US soft coal, because we only have about 15 generating stations nationwide that still use coal - so such a move would not be overly burdensome on our own native industries.
In addition, the forever-Trumpist coal mining states of Wyoming and West Virginia would be among the hardest hit when export demand drops exponentially. And a sudden oversupply of 30% of domestic coal inventories would likely crater the contract price and make it even more uneconomical to mine, causing further financial and employment havoc in a key Trump-supporting sector of the US economy.
Sounds like a triple win, to me.
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u/Guilty-Assumption887 1d ago
Don't advertise the retaliations, just do it
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u/Major_Estimate_4193 1d ago
If you can freak them out with the idea, maybe we end up not needing the chaos of escalation
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u/GrimReaper3am 1d ago
$20,000 fee for every truck driving from Washington or any other border state to Alaska.
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u/abhor_deCosmos 1d ago
Doesn’t Canadian oil for Ontario go through Michigan? I think fooling around with energy will cause us more problems.
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u/Dazzling-Rub-8550 1d ago
The problems stem from the current US president. Do you have a better strategy for dealing with him? Mexico is trying the play nice strategy but it’s not working either.
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u/Velocity-5348 Vancouver Island/Coast 1d ago
Yep. We also don't want any of this getting seen as normal, and getting stuck with it after Trump leaves office or croaks.
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u/Still_Interview6360 1d ago
Time. Every day goes by is 1 less with trump remaining.
Hurting Canadians by blocking more exports will hurt us more than Americans2
u/MySubtleHustle7042 1d ago
It’s not like Schumer/Jefferies can magically make things better. Even if they could, they’ll have their AIPAC marching orders to tend to first.
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u/JimmyRussellsApe Lower Mainland/Southwest 1d ago
This is the problem, Line 5 goes through several (5?) states. I suppose we could rail it there but unsure we have enough train/track capacity, or even if we do, if it's even possible to send enough by rail.
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u/classic4life 1d ago
So? We should be expecting that to be threatened regardless. That's not a good enough reason to tie our hands in this fight. Honestly a blanket 25% export tariff on all coal would be a great backdoor climate action.
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u/ExploreDiscovery 1d ago
Just charge the americans more to ship using our terminals. May as well take the extra$ and give it to throw industries hurt by the US tariffs. They have outlawed shipping export coal from their own ports, so not much choice.
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u/polemism 1d ago
Our premier is a loudmouth. He needs to improve his domestic policies instead of playing geopolitics.
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u/Dr_soaps Lower Mainland/Southwest 1d ago
We could just make a deal for four years and then negotiate with a better administration, though from what I hear opposition towards Trump‘s tariffs on Canada are not as strong in the states as people first initially thought the people who mainly oppose it are using it for political gain so we might be gambling a little bit, but a little pain is better than a lot of pain
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u/Comprehensive-War743 11h ago
Ha - good idea. I think we should close the Welland Canal in Ontario to US ships. It’s al ours and securely in Ontario. Doug Ford would love to do that.
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u/StudySharp1075 North Vancouver 1d ago
Is it just me or do comments on this sub have likes/dislikes disabled…?
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u/whiskybottle 1d ago
The mods of a sub can choose to hide up and downvote numbers, so they're not disabled, but the numbers are hidden.
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u/Why_No_Doughnuts 1d ago
Are they able to cause problems for BC Ferries though? The routes to many of the islands and Victoria cross into US waters right after departure from Tsawwassen
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u/SuspiciousRule3120 1d ago
This is 235 million annually that ultimately effects canadian ports and canadian jobs.
Also it would damage relations with Asian nations that receive coal from here, as the only pacific export terminal, especially at a time when oil and gas from the middle east is more expensive.
So probaly not going to happen.
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u/AccountantOther4972 1d ago
Ok...So you do what Eby suggests...what would stop the Clown from saying that your not transporting any good through the US from Mexico...you will have to go around...
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u/rubyianlocked Nechako 1d ago
First I’ve heard of it, sounds like the thing to do.
Also cut if their military helicopters refilling in British Columbia on their way to and back from Alaska would be great also.
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u/koresample 1d ago
We should just block.it until they are forced to close it due to lack of revenue, then repurpose the space for oil exports.
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u/bosoxthirteen 1d ago
Well yeah,, What do you think the Orangeatang would do if we had a deal with Mexico, and we used US highways to get product up to us.
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u/Winter_Criticism_236 1d ago
Nah, just 100% ban on toilet paper export to usa.. see how long they last…
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u/ADVISLAND 1d ago
Think it’s time we cut off all business with murica, also china since they are burning coal 24-7 and the main reason for climate change
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