US-Canada trade war threatens electricity imports, prices

A trade dispute between the U.S. and Canada is raising questions about electricity supplies and prices in New England, a region that imports power from Canada. Canada is expected to announce retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods after President Trump's 50% tariffs on about $20 billion in Canadian goods took effect over the weekend. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said "everything is on the table," including halting the province's electricity exports entirely, and reportedly discussed a 25% tariff on power sent to the U.S. A similar tariff happened in 2025 during an earlier dispute, but it was dropped a day after taking effect.

New England's grid operator, ISO New England, said that if Canada cuts back on power exports, it does not expect reliability problems under normal weather. In extreme heat or cold, supplies could get tight, though that depends on many hard-to-predict factors. The bigger and more likely effect, the grid operator said, would be financial: higher wholesale electricity prices and increased regional emissions, since less low-carbon Canadian hydropower would be flowing in.

For most homeowners, this is not an immediate reason to act, but it is worth watching if you live in New England or New York, where ties to Canadian power have grown. A new underground transmission line, the Champlain-Hudson Power Express, began delivering Canadian hydropower to New York City in June and is expected to supply up to 20% of the city's electricity needs. If trade tensions disrupt that supply, it could show up as higher electric bills rather than outages.