Trump Threatened Canada's Electricity Without Realizing NYC Would Go Dark

By The Decision Room

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In March 2025, Donald Trump threatened a 100% tariff on Canadian electricity — believing Canada was the desperate seller and America the indispensable buyer. He had it exactly backwards. This year, the Champlain Hudson Power Express goes live — a 339-mile, $4+ billion buried cable carrying hydroelectric power from Quebec directly into New York City. It will supply one-fifth of NYC's entire electricity. The contract is worth more than $20 billion. And the company controlling the flow is Hydro-Québec — a corporation owned entirely by the government of Quebec. Around 75% of Hydro-Québec's exports go to just three U.S. states: New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont. The Northeast spent 15 years deliberately engineering this dependency to decarbonize. Then Trump picked a trade war with the country holding the other end of the cable. Quebec Premier François Legault: "It's the start of the commercial war." Hydro-Québec CEO Michael Sabia: Canada "cannot let itself get walked over." If Quebe

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