Northwestern Ontario's Ring of Fire central in U.S.-Canada trade war: experts

Michelle Allan · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 17, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 9 minutes ago

The Ring of Fire successful northwestern Ontario has go a cardinal fig successful the conflict to power captious minerals, which experts accidental is the bosom of U.S. President Donald Trump's threats to annex Canada.

While a distant Ontario peat bog whitethorn not beryllium the signifier that archetypal comes to caput erstwhile picturing the geopolitical conflict, the captious minerals beneath it are indispensable to renewable vigor and integer technology. 

Northern Ontario's Ring of Fire is simply a crescent-shaped mineral deposit that has been eyed arsenic a captious root for Ontario's burgeoning electrical conveyance artillery industry. 

U.S. President Donald Trump is present eyeing Canada's affluent mineral deposits arsenic America can't nutrient capable of its own, said Elizabeth Steyn, an adjunct instrumentality prof astatine the University of Calgary. 

The Ring of Fire contains minerals including nickel, chromium, palladium and platinum, said Steyn, who teaches a people connected captious minerals, regulatory frameworks and geopolitics. These minerals are highly appealing to the U.S.

"They are important successful presumption of not lone the vigor transition, but the integer modulation and besides nationalist security," Steyn said. 

As the commercialized warfare betwixt Canada and the U.S. heats up, Trump's prime of what to tariff shows however overmuch the U.S. relies connected Canadian captious minerals, she said. 

"While the tariffs are astatine 25 per cent, vigor is being assessed astatine 10 per cent and vigor materials see captious minerals. Now that tells america a story, due to the fact that if they didn't truly request them, they would person been tariffing them astatine 25 per cent arsenic well," said Steyn. 

The increasing 'race' for resources

Journalist Vince Beiser has dug into the captious minerals contention successful his caller book, "Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future." Echoing erstwhile Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Beiser said Trump's menace to annex Canada is motivated by his tendency for captious minerals. 

"Canada is loaded with these captious metals that are going to beryllium perfectly important for the adjacent 20, 50, 100 years of quality development," Beiser said.

But these coveted minerals are, truthful far, lone a committedness of the Ring of Fire's potential. The 5,000-square-kilometre country is simply a remote, swampy peatland astir 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay. Without a transportation to the provincial road network, it's lone accessible by crystal roadworthy successful the winter or level successful the remaining months. 

"It's a agelong mode betwixt knowing there's metals underground and getting them up supra the crushed and to market," said Beiser. 

The work to consult

Potential improvement has faced pushback from immoderate First Nations, which person antecedently said they haven't been decently consulted and spot it arsenic a imaginable menace to their accepted ways of life.

There are besides a fig of unfastened cases against the Ontario authorities implicit the work to consult successful bluish Ontario's mining sector, arsenic good arsenic a ineligible enactment implicit the province's online assertion staking programme and its regulatory processes. 

Local absorption to mining volition apt marque improvement difficult, said Steyn. 

"I deliberation the azygous biggest situation is not truthful overmuch a ineligible challenge, it's the information that they are facing important assemblage upset with the projected improvement and until they person bargain successful from the surrounding communities, I bash not spot those projects going ahead," she said.

Another Anishinaabe First Nation successful Quebec had a recent, precedent-setting triumph successful national tribunal that could rise the barroom for consultation obligations nether the United Nations Declaration connected the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (UNDRIP). 

Even if it goes to appeal, this case "changes the regulatory landscape," said Steyn. 

"Everybody has been waiting to perceive what precisely happens with UNDRIP, and I deliberation a prospective developer would play it precise riskily if they bash not consult to that depth."