Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, retaliated against President Trump’s economic threats on Monday by imposing a 25 percent surcharge on the electricity that it exports to Michigan, Minnesota and New York.
The move will cost businesses and residents in each state up to $400,000 per day, and lift the average energy bill by about $100 per month, Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference. The province exports enough energy to power about 1.5 million homes and businesses in those states, he added. They went into effect on Monday.
President Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on Canadian exports last Tuesday, but then on Thursday decided to suspend most of them for 30 days as part of his on-again, off-again use of economic weapons against various countries.
Mr. Ford said he would continue to leverage the province’s key exports to the United States and exert “maximum pressure,” warning he would shut off the supply of electricity completely if the Trump administration does not back down on tariffs.
“Until these tariffs are off the table, until the threat of tariffs is gone for good, we will not relent,” Mr. Ford said. “Pausing some tariffs, making last-minute exemptions, it won’t cut it. We need to end the chaos once and for all.”
“Minnesota cannot afford Trump’s billionaire-run economy,” Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said in a post on X, calling the residents of his state the “first victims of Trump’s trade war.”
The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, which runs the regional electric grid in parts of 15 states including Minnesota and Michigan, said in a statement that it expected minimal effects from the surcharge. The operator imported less than 1 percent of its total energy from Canada last year.
The New York Independent System Operator, the nonprofit corporation that manages the state’s electricity, said in a statement that it was analyzing the effects of the surcharge. The operator had previously expressed concerns that the measures could disrupt energy flows between the highly integrated systems and cost the state tens of millions of dollars per year.
In 2023, New York imported a net 3,976 gigawatt hours from Ontario, according to a 2024 report from the operator, representing almost 3 percent of the total energy usage across its bulk electric system.
Mr. Ford has been a leading politician in Canada’s battle against Mr. Trump, taking other actions such as removing American alcohol products from government-run liquor stores.
