Roving Periscope: Post-Venezuela, Trump’s next target—Alberta in Canada!
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: After President Donald Trump’s repeatedly failed attempts to make Canada the USA’s 51st state, America is likely supporting separatists of resource-rich Alberta to split away from the North American neighbour, the media reported on Friday.
Some top US officials are reported to have met Alberta’s separatists who sought funding from the Trump administration after several meetings.
Reacting to reports, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney said he expected the US to respect the country’s sovereignty.
The Financial Times reported that US State Department officials held multiple meetings with the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), a group calling for a referendum on whether the energy-rich western province should leave Canada. The APP is a pro-independence group that is campaigning for a referendum on Alberta leaving Canada.
Speaking in Ottawa on Thursday, PM Carney said he has been clear with US President Donald Trump on the issue.
“I expect the US administration to respect Canadian sovereignty,” he said, adding that after raising the issue, he wanted the two sides to focus on areas where they can work together.
PM Carney is himself an Albertan, raised in Edmonton, the provincial capital. The province has seen a simmering independence movement for decades.
Leaders of the APP reportedly met with US State Department officials in Washington at least three times since last April, after Trump returned to the White House for a second term in January 2025.
These meetings prompted concern in Ottawa regarding potential US interference in Canadian domestic politics.
America’s support
During an interview with the right-wing broadcaster Real America’s Voice, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week described Alberta as “a natural partner for the US” and praised the province’s resource wealth and “independent” character.
“Alberta has a wealth of natural resources, but they (the Canadian government) won’t let them build a pipeline to the Pacific,” he said. “I think we should let them come down into the US,” Bessent said.
“There’s a rumour they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada or not.”
Asked if he knew something about the separation effort, Bessent said, “People are talking. People want sovereignty. They want what the US has got.”
After Bessent’s comments, Jeffrey Rath, a leader of the APP, said that the group was seeking another meeting with US officials next month, where they are expected to ask about a possible USD 500 billion credit line to support Alberta if a future independence referendum – which has not yet been called – were to be held.
The developments come at a sensitive moment in US-Canada relations, with trade tensions still simmering and after a recent speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos where PM Carney warned that Washington was contributing to a “rupture” in the global order.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to make Canada part of the American Union. His expansionist ambitions have been further underscored by his recent push to acquire Greenland from Denmark, which, like Canada, is a NATO ally. At the start of 2026, the US military also abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, and has since attempted to take control of the South American nation’s massive oil industry.
On Thursday, British Columbia Premier David Eby described the reported behind-the-scenes meetings as “treason”.
“To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that – and that word is treason,” Eby told reporters.
“It is completely inappropriate to seek to weaken Canada, to go and ask for assistance, to break up this country from a foreign power and – with respect – a president who has not been particularly respectful of Canada’s sovereignty.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford appealed for Canadian unity on Thursday morning.
“You know, we have a referendum going on out in Alberta. The separatists in Quebec say they’re gonna call a referendum if they get elected. Like, folks, we need to stick together. It’s Team Canada. It’s nothing else,” he said.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, however, said she won’t demonise the Albertans who are open to separation because of “legitimate grievances” with Ottawa and said she did not want to “demonise or marginalise a million of my fellow citizens”.
Smith has long been pro-Trump and visited the US President’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in January 2025, when most other Canadian leaders opposed his demand that Canada become a part of the United States.
Alberta
Anger towards Ottawa has been building in Alberta for decades, rooted largely in disputes over how the federal government manages the province’s vast oil and gas resources.
Many Albertans feel federal policies – particularly environmental regulations, carbon pricing and pipeline approvals – limit Alberta’s ability to develop and export its energy.
As a landlocked province, sand-witched between Canada and the US, Alberta depends on pipelines and cooperation with other provinces to access global markets, making those federal decisions especially contentious.
Many Albertans believe the province generates significant wealth while having limited influence over national decision-making. In 2024-25, for instance, it contributed 15 percent of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP), despite being home to only 12 percent of the population.
Alberta consistently produces more than 80 percent of Canada’s oil and 60 percent of the country’s natural gas.
Yet, many Albertans say that the federal government does not give the province its fair share from taxes collected. Canada has a system of equalisation payments, under which the federal government pays poorer provinces extra funds to ensure that they maintain social services. While Quebec and Manitoba receive the highest payments, Alberta – as well as British Columbia and Saskatchewan – at the moment receive no equalisation payments.
Carney recently signed an agreement with Alberta, opening the door for an oil pipeline to the Pacific, though it is opposed by Eby and faces significant hurdles.
A referendum on Alberta’s independence could happen later this year if a group of residents can collect the nearly 178,000 signatures required to force a vote on the issue. But even if the referendum passes, Alberta would not be immediately independent.
Under the Clarity Act, the federal government would first have to determine whether the referendum question was clear and whether the result represented a clear majority. Only then would negotiations begin, covering issues such as the division of assets and debt, borders and Indigenous rights.
Canada’s public broadcaster CBC earlier this year quoted US national security analyst Brandon Weichert as saying that Trump’s talk of Canada becoming the “51st state” was, in reality, aimed at Alberta, according to media reports.
Appearing on a show hosted by former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, Weichert suggested that a vote for independence in Alberta would prompt the US to recognise the province and guide it towards becoming a US state.
US officials, however, sought to downplay the significance of their meetings with Alberta separatists. A White House official told Axios that officials “meet with a number of civil society groups” and that “no support or commitments were conveyed.”
Carney outraged Trump
Amid the US-Canada tensions, President Trump recently withdrew an invitation for Canada to join his Board of Peace initiative, aimed at resolving global conflicts, including Gaza and Ukraine.
Trump’s about-face followed Canadian PM Carney’s WEF speech in Davos, where he openly decried powerful nations using economic integration as weapons and tariffs as leverage.
“Please let this Letter serve to represent that the Board of Peace is withdrawing its invitation to you regarding Canada’s joining, what will be, the most prestigious Board of Leaders ever assembled, at any time,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post directed at Carney.
Last week, Carney’s office said he had been invited to serve on the board and planned to accept.
Carney received a rare standing ovation in Davos after the speech, in which he urged nations to accept the end of a rules-based global order.
Canada, which recently signed a trade deal with China, can show how “middle powers” might act together to avoid being victimised by American hegemony, he added.
Trump retorted that Canada “lives because of the United States,” and told listeners in Davos that Carney should be grateful for the United States’ previous largesse.
“Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements,” he added, addressing Carney directly.
