Rejecting the pipeline bid would worsen US relations with Canada  Canada’s Oil reserves will be of major strategic value in the next century. Currently the United States is Canada’s preferred trading partner and strategic ally, both because of a history of past cooperation, and because the US is both more willing and able to support Canadian claims to the Arctic than China. The Pipeline would consolidate this relationship, ensuring that the development of Canada’s reserves would occur with the American market in mind, because once built, it would be far more expensive to build a second Pipeline than to simply use the existing one.  The United States, is not however, Canada’s only option. Canada is determined to sell the oil one way or another, and an American refusal will not save the environment. What it will do is make Canada look elsewhere. The Canadian government publicly floated a joint-Canadian-Chinese pipeline proposal which would bring the oil to the Pacific after the Obama Administration delayed consideration of the project until after 2012. [1]  Just as the Keystone Pipeline would lock Canada into the US Market, a decision to develop Canadian reserves with the Chinese market in mind would be difficult to reverse, and undermine the energy independence of the United States rather than secure it.  [1] Tan, Florence, and Hua, Judy, ‘Analysis: Harper’s bet may pay off; China open to Canadian oil’, Reuters, 25 November 2011,