President Donald Trump said he wants the Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport crude oil from Canada to the United States, built as soon as possible, years after the previous administration scrapped the project.
The president said his administration is “very different” than the previous one, adding that he would promise “easy approvals” and an “almost immediate start” to the project.
“If not them, perhaps another Pipeline Company,” Trump said. “We want the Keystone XL Pipeline built!”
Construction of the 1,200-mile pipeline started in 2010 and was meant to carry oil sands crude from Canada to the interior United States.
The Keystone XL pipeline was expected to carry 830,000 barrels per day of crude oil from Alberta’s oil sands to Nebraska, but the project was delayed due to opposition from U.S. landowners, Native American tribes, and environmentalists.
Opponents of the pipeline, including environmentalist groups, had fought its construction for years by arguing it was unnecessary and would hamper the U.S. transition to alternative forms of energy.
It was first rejected by President Barack Obama in 2015. Trump in his first term attempted to resurrect the project but it was stymied by lawsuits.
“The analysis further concluded that approval of the proposed pipeline would undermine U.S. climate leadership by undercutting the credibility and influence of the United States in urging other countries to take ambitious climate action,” Biden’s 2021 executive order stated.
TC Energy, the company that would have built the Keystone XL pipeline, spun off its oil pipeline business in October 2023 into a new company called South Bow Energy. After the project’s cancellation in 2021, TC Energy said it would no longer pursue construction.
Trump’s recent post on Truth Social did not name a company but referred to the one that had been building the pipeline.
The president’s recent comments come weeks after he told a crowd that the United States doesn’t need oil, gas, vehicles, or lumber from Canada, while seeking to impose a 25 percent tariff on Canadian and Mexican products. He said the tariffs were necessary because of those countries’ inability to address illegal immigration and drug trafficking.
At the start of February, he said he would postpone the tariffs until March, but he separately imposed a 10 percent tariff on Chinese products, on top of existing tariffs, citing China’s failure to stop the domestic production of fentanyl precursor chemicals.
Trump also said Canadian energy products would face a lower tariff of 10 percent. Canada is the top supplier of crude oil to the United States, accounting for about 60 percent of total U.S. oil imports, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The Epoch Times contacted South Bow Energy for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
