A river that runs between the U.S. and Canada has now run itself right into the middle of the fight between the two allies.
President Donald Trump’s administration has now stopped negotiations to re-up a decades-old U.S.-Canada treaty that controls the flow of the Columbia River between British Columbia after claiming it could play a role in solving California water shortages.
Last year, Biden’s administration reached a tentative three-year agreement with Canadian officials to renew the Columbia River Treaty, which governs flood control and hydropower sharing between the two countries.
It was up to Trump’s administration to finalize the agreement, which could now be in jeopardy — but either nation must give ten years notice before abandoning the agreement`, The Guardian reported. The pause comes as Trump wages a trade war against Canada, levying high tariffs against the country as Canadian officials respond in kind.
Under the original 1964 treaty, Canadian officials agreed to build storage dams that hold back the water to reduce the threat of flooding. This followed a 1948 flood that devastated Vanport, Oregon. In return, American officials granted British Columbia a share of the value of hydroelectric power generated downstream.
The river is responsible for more than 40 percent of hydroelectric power in the U.S., Le Monde reports, and the treaty provides some $200 million to Canada each year.
That could soon all be in jeopardy.
Trump’s decision to pause treaty negotiations comes after he once called the river a “very large faucet” that he said could provide much-needed water to California if diverted — indicating he may be interested in ending the treaty to access more water from the river, Le Monde reports.
“You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north with the snow caps and Canada, and all pouring down and they have essentially a very large faucet,” Trump said in September 2024.
“You turn the faucet and it takes one day to turn it, and it’s massive, it’s as big as the wall of that building right there behind you. You turn that, and all of that water aimlessly goes into the Pacific, and if they turned it back, all of that water would come right down here and right into Los Angeles,” he added.
University of Oregon environmental law professor Adell Amos told Le Monde the pause in negotiations is “a threat to our collective ability to manage these resources, in light of climate change.”
Tricia Stadnyk, an expert in hydrological modeling at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, is concerned the treaty has become “a tool for negotiating broader issues.”
“If everyone acts in their own interests, ecosystems will lose out,” Stadnyk told Le Monde. “As with the ongoing trade war, nothing good will come of a water war.”
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment about ending negotiations.
Trump has long fixated on California’s water supply.
Earlier this year, DOGE staffers attempted to pressure the acting head of the Bureau of Reclamation to open a water pump system they believed would send the water to Los Angeles amid the devastating wildfires in January. But the system wouldn’t have allowed water to reach the scorched city.
Soon afterward, Trump ordered the US Army Corps to open up two Southern California dams at the end of January. This release sent water rushing toward farmland in the San Joaquin Valley, the Los Angeles Times reported, prompting concern from farmers.
Trump ordered the release after claiming that water access issues caused the wildfires that killed nearly 30 people. Trump falsely claimed the LA fires were a result of the state’s water policies.
“This is going to hurt farmers,” water consultant Dan Vink told the Times. “This takes water out of their summer irrigation portfolio.”
