Great Lakes Reverberations

What could recent U.S. actions mean for freshwater, and for the US-Canadian Great Lakes partnership?

For 117 years, Canada and the U.S. have relied on the Boundary Waters Treaty to prevent and resolve disputes over rivers and lakes that cross or straddle their shared border. At its inception in 1909, the two nations could boast that it was a global model for information-sharing and peaceful mediation between nations.

But will it, and the other mechanisms established since then to promote common stewardship of the Great Lakes (and other boundary waters) by the two nations, survive current tensions? And if they don’t, what does that mean for 20% of the world’s available surface freshwater?

Even two years ago, there seemed little need to ask the questions. An unflinching friend of the U.S., Canada, it has always seemed, shared American values in many ways, including over the management of freshwater.

Canadian values haven’t changed.

The potential unraveling of U.S. policy on waters shared with Canada was first signaled by Presidential candidate Donald Trump who, in 2024, claimed there is a “giant faucet” of Canadian water that can be turned on to address the water woes of California. There isn’t.

The issue did not come up during the transition of candidate Trump to President Trump. But once there was a President Trump again, water began bubbling up on his agenda.

The matter was largely lost in the hubbub over the President’s proposal to make Canada the 51st state, but the coveting of Canadian water was no secret. The New York Times reported:

Trump “did not believe that the treaty that demarcates the border between the two countries was valid and that he wants to revise the boundary. He offered no further explanation. The border treaty Mr. Trump referred to was established in 1908 and finalized the international boundary between Canada, then a British dominion, and the United States. Mr. Trump also mentioned revisiting the sharing of lakes and rivers between the two nations, which is regulated by a number of treaties, a topic he’s expressed interest about in the past.”

The recent U.S. “law enforcement action” in Argentina and threats to use force to seize Greenland if necessary have unnerved people around the globe. Canadians, understandably, are especially concerned.

Maude Barlow, a Canadian water justice advocate and author, says, “We are very well aware that not only does Trump see our natural resources as his, he has disdain for liberal democracies such as ours and those of the EU.” Barlow, the founder of the Blue Planet Project, co-founder of the Council of Canadians and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, adds that Greenland “is a stone’s throw from our borders and we see no reason he would consider our claim to our Arctic territories any more than he does Denmark’s to Greenland.”

“Trump has not mentioned our water recently but really, he doesn’t need to for us to feel truly vulnerable. He has made it clear that his ‘Donroe Doctrine’ sees all of the resources of North and South America as his by right and he will take them when he needs them. He does not need us to cede our water in a trade agreement. He doesn’t honor those anyway. He could just stick a pipe or two in the Great Lakes and who is to stop him?”

Can the U.S. rip up the Boundary Waters Treaty? Yes, but although not overnight. The treaty provides that it can be “terminated by twelve months’ written notice” given by one party to the other.

What does that mean for water along the 5,525-mile border between the U.S. and Canada?

One potential impact is that neither nation would be barred from diverting Great Lakes water or even required to confer with the other on such an action. The treaty explicitly says “no further or other uses or obstructions or diversions, whether temporary or permanent, of boundary waters on either side of the line, affecting the natural level or flow of boundary waters on the other side of the line shall be made except by authority of the United States or the Dominion of Canada and approval by the International Joint Commission.” If the treaty is gone, so is the Commission and the process.

Then there’s the Great Lakes Compact, enacted in 2008 by the eight Great Lakes states and approved by Congress and the President. It bars new or increased diversions of Great Lakes water with limited exceptions. It has generally worked well and the IJC recently recommended it continue to govern Great Lakes diversions and consumptive uses.

Except not all U.S. laws are being observed by the Trump Administration. There is no reason to presume the Compact is immune from such treatment.

Canadians are right to be concerned. Maybe Americans who care about the Great Lakes should be, too, for if the treaty and compact are abandoned, generations of U.S. - Canada harmony regarding the Great Lakes may be abandoned too.

Finally, Americans and the U.S. government should not take Canadians lightly. The simple-minded American stereotype of “nice” Canadians is far from consistent with Canada’s history, the character of Canadians, and their refusal to be intimidated.

Barlow said Canadian feeling “against Trump and his ‘gang’ is morphing into something larger and you hear people angry at ‘Americans.’ That is why it is so important for us to keep our Canadian/American alliances and working groups together. The majority of Americans don’t want this regime and its agenda any more than we do and we have to continue to forge bonds that protect our common heritage, including of course, the Great Lakes.”

Something big is at stake — even bigger than the Great Lakes. What are we going to do about it?