Obama's XL Pipeline Refusal Tilts Canada Permanently Toward China

Is this hope, change, or “forward”? Canadian PM Stephen Harper says that after President Obama’s decision to scuttle the XL Pipeline that would have moved Canadian oil to and through US markets, his country has been forced to seek more reliable markets.

“Look, the very fact that a ‘no’ could even be said underscores to our country that we must diversify our energy export markets,” Harper told [former Dem. Rep. Jane] Harman in front of a live audience of businesspeople, scholars, diplomats, and journalists.

“We cannot be, as a country, in a situation where our one and, in many cases, only energy partner could say no to our energy products. We just cannot be in that position.”

His wide-ranging question-and-answer at the influential non-partisan think-tank — which also touched on border security, trade, the Arctic and Syria among other topics — followed a meeting with Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon at the White House for the sixth North American Leaders’ Summit.

Harper also told Harman that Canada has been selling its oil to the United States at a discounted price.

So not only will America be able to buy less Canadian oil even if Keystone is eventually approved, the U.S. will also have to pay more for it because the market for oilsands crude will be more competitive.

Maybe when he wishes that the United States could be China for a day, NYT columnist Thom Friedman has a point: If we were China, we could at least buy oil from our neighbors to the north without worrying that our own president would stand in the way.

In light of today’s decision regarding a lite amnesty for some illegal aliens, the president’s economic policies seem to boil down to this: Screw American jobs, screw American energy, screw American citizens.

That’ll fit on a tweet, too.