Alberta looks to increase influence with new U.S. administration

Alberta is determined to raise both its profile and its influence with the incoming Donald Trump administration, according to the province's senior representative in Washington, James Rajotte.

And an expert in Canada-U.S. relations says the province is well-placed to do just that.

Rajotte joined host Kathleen Petty on this week's edition of the CBC podcast West of Centre.

He said the province's priority right now is building on the relationships that have already been established with likely members of the new administration and forcefully expressing Alberta's position on its primary area of concern: tariffs.

"The number 1 thing that Canadian and Alberta officials are concerned about is, will there be tariffs coming?" Rajotte said.

The Alberta oil and gas sector accounted for $133 billion worth of trade last year with the U.S. That represented 82 per cent of the province's total exports to (by far) its largest trading partner.

Rajotte says he and other Alberta officials will be making the case that imposing the 10 per cent tariffs promised by Trump during his recent election campaign on Alberta energy products would have a massive, negative effect on the cost of living south of the border.

"Our argument is that putting tariffs on that just makes it more expensive for Americans, which obviously the incoming administration does not want to see," he said.

Christopher Sands is the director of the Wilson Center's Canada Institute in Washington, D.C. When asked how much influence a sub-national government like Alberta's can have with Washington policy-makers in negotiations over tariffs on oil and gas, he told CBC News that the question is not so much about influence, it's more about how much the new administration will try to avoid policies that will push up gas prices for Americans.

He pointed to a statement made by a reporter a few years ago about Trump — that the people who support him take him seriously, but not literally.

"I think the 10 per cent tariff has a bit of the same flair. It certainly communicated to a lot of people in the election that he wasn't about to let foreign countries take advantage of us … but I'm not sure how imminent it is," Sands said.

"I think what James and his crew need to do — and it's always tricky — is to have the access to people, whether it's on the Hill or elsewhere, to walk through the idea that a 10 per cent tariff has implications for voters."

That is a position that Rajotte has already begun staking out.

"Our role here is to really make the point that one of the main concerns during the election was affordability, especially energy affordability… And so the lower energy costs that they need, Alberta and Canada are really the answer for that," he said.