Politalk.ca

BREAKING: The U.S. Justice Department has ordered its antitrust division to halt all cooperation with Canada.

An email titled "Pause on Canada" told officials to stop working with Canadian authorities on cases and policy. No reason was given — Wall Street Journal

The directive came from senior DOJ leadership.

It applies to all cooperation, including:

joint investigations

information‑sharing

policy discussions

coordination on competition enforcement

Staff were told the pause is immediate and indefinite.

No legal or diplomatic justification was included in the message.

This is highly unusual — the U.S. and Canada have decades of deep antitrust cooperation, including formal agreements and routine joint enforcement actions.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/jus ... t-da9d74e0

The U.S.-Venezuela Deal (0:00 - 3:58): While the U.S. announced a major deal involving 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves, the speaker argues this is largely political maneuvering ahead of midterms. Venezuela's current export capacity is roughly 1.25 million barrels per day—less than one-third of what Canada sends to the U.S. (2:52 - 3:05). Infrastructure limitations, including aging terminals and lack of pipelines, make a full replacement of Canadian heavy crude impossible for the foreseeable future (4:50 - 5:32).

The Reality of U.S. Refineries (7:19 - 9:35): Many U.S. refineries, particularly in the Midwest, are technically engineered for Alberta’s heavy sour crude. Pipelines are currently set up to move Canadian oil south, and the logistics of reversing these flows or routing Venezuelan oil to these inland plants are prohibitive (8:10 - 9:35).

Canada's Strategic Pivot (9:35 - 10:32): Canada has already begun diversifying its own customer base through the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which allows for increased exports to Asia. This move is crucial for reducing dependence on the U.S. as a single counterparty (9:40 - 10:20).

Current Impact (11:13 - 13:30): While Venezuelan oil is beginning to displace some Canadian crude on the U.S. Gulf Coast, this shift is primarily impacting pricing and industry revenue rather than total volume. The speaker notes that the U.S. is using this deal as leverage to apply downward pressure on Canadian oil prices (12:25 - 13:16).


Can they? Sure but industry retooling doesn't turn on a dime or will be cheap. A decade and billions and that assumes that is under stable conditions. HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA