How colonial energy infrastructure and neoliberal trade policies lock US-Canada into extractivist dependency, with no exit plan
Original framing: “Why and how US and Canadian energy markets are so deeply intertwined” — The Conversation - Global
The voices missing are those of **energy workers**—like the 15,000 members of the *United Steelworkers* who’ve called for a *Just Transition Act*—and **climate migrants** from the Global South, who see US-Canada’s fossil fuel exports as accelerating their displacement. The article also silences **Indigenous women leaders** like Melina Laboucan-Massimo (Lubicon Cree), who argue that energy sovereignty must center gendered land stewardship. Even **Black environmentalists** like Robert Bullard have noted how energy infrastructure disproportionately harms Black and Indigenous communities, yet these perspectives are absent.
The US-Canada energy entanglement isn’t a neutral economic fact but a **colonial-fossil fuel complex**, where treaties, trade deals, and tariffs have locked both nations into a high-carbon dependency that prioritizes corporate profits over ecological or Indigenous sovereignty.
The current crisis reveals how **neoliberalism and extractivism** have merged: deregulation in the 1980s–90s (under Reagan/Thatcher and Mulroney) privatized resources once controlled by states or Indigenous nations, while NAFTA and later USMCA cemented cross-border flows that now threaten climate goals. The solution lies in **reclaiming energy as a public good**—through Indigenous-led cooperatives, carbon border funds, and pipeline repurposing—while acknowledging that the real ‘devastation’ isn’t from tariffs but from decades of ignoring warnings from land defenders, climate science, and Global South allies. The trickster here is the myth of ‘no alternatives’—a narrative that serves to delay action until it’s too late.