Why Your Credit Card Is a National Security Threat

Canada’s sovereignty call-to-arms has largely been expressed through what we buy. Shoppers fiercely scrutinize labels and corporate ownership to determine whether a product is truly “Canadian.” But while we’re paying closer attention to the origin and composition of the products we’re purchasing, we’re not really thinking about how we pay for them. That needs to change.

• In 2025, American-owned Visa and Mastercard controlled 96 percent of Canada’s credit card market
• These networks can be weaponized, shutting countries out of global commerce
• Canada must build its own digital payment infrastructure to protect its autonomy

Kimberly Prost probably thinks about it every day. The Canadian International Criminal Court judge has been sanctioned by the Donald Trump administration since August 2025 for authorizing investigations into alleged war crimes by American personnel in Afghanistan, as well as cases related to Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Those sanctions mean that when Prost goes on vacation, she needs to phone hotels in advance to explain why she can’t pay for her stay with a credit card.

Prost is navigating a financial shadow ban because global commerce moves through an Americanized network. In 2025, Visa and Mastercard controlled 96 percent of Canada’s credit card market. We have a strong domestic debit system with Interac, but even that independence is eroding: Visa and Mastercard have partnered with Interac on co-badged cards, while many consumers pay with Apple-issued iPhones or use terminals run by American companies, such as Chase, Global Payments, Square, and Stripe.

A system that inconveniences a judge today could, in theory, be turned against a whole country tomorrow. The United Kingdom is reportedly exploring a national alternative to Visa and Mastercard over fears Trump could use United States–owned payment providers to freeze its economy. European officials have warned the continent is dangerously exposed to such coercion.

Canada had a taste of that vulnerability during the 2022 Rogers outage, which affected over 12 million subscribers (including Interac). It was estimated the economic cost to the broader Canadian economy was $142 million. Cloudflare’s global outage in 2025 only lasted about six hours but was estimated to cost Shopify over $4 million (US).

In both cases, the disruption was accidental. But Visa and Mastercard have already deliberately switched off service in specific geographies. In March 2022, both companies suspended operations in Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Visa cards issued by Russian banks still worked for domestic purchases, but neither card worked abroad, and neither could be used for foreign online transactions. When a network shuts down in this way, it severs the link between local banks and the international system, effectively isolating that market from the world.

Conversations about what sovereignty is and what it means can get fussy fast. But it’s a fairly simple determination: Can you govern the markets you have? If another country can turn your main credit card networks off, and you lack a workable alternative, then you don’t.

The lesson here isn’t just that it can happen. It’s that we now know it can. Even the credible threat of disruption fundamentally changes bargaining dynamics. If the United Kingdom and Europe are urgently building out a Plan B, we should at least ask if Canada has its own. And the answer, for now, is no.

• Ottawa Hands Billions to Firms Calling Themselves Canadian. Most Aren’t
• Carney’s “Buy Canadian” Policy Doesn’t Require Companies to Be Canadian
• How Far Can “Buy Canadian” Really Go?

It helps to step back and look at how global power actually operates in the twenty-first century. In Underground Empire, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman argue that America’s outsized influence no longer comes just from military dominance or territory but from surveilling and controlling the flows of money throughout the world. Visa and Mastercard may be routers for cross-border card payments, but they are also a pipeline for immensely strategic economic data (Visa explicitly frames its Spending Momentum Index as a way to track “aggregate consumer spending”). In an era of data-driven business strategies, the metrics that credit companies provide allow firms to “see” the economy ahead of competitors. For data-hungry artificial intelligence firms, it’s a total jackpot. For the US, argue Farrell and Newman, it is a key source of geopolitical leverage.

Washington is increasingly brazen about that leverage. Take standards—the agreed-upon rules that allow organizations and technologies to work together. These protocols govern everything from 5G networks to biotech to—crucial here—payment systems. Because companies around the world must comply to make compatible products, countries that write the rules shape entire markets. The White House’s National Security Strategy applies standards across its agencies as tools of statecraft. Last year, the United States Patent and Trademark Office launched an initiative aimed at ensuring patent holders receive “strong and predictable enforcement” of standards. Translation: Washington intends to keep setting the terms of trade in their favour.

And while the administration has withdrawn from dozens of international organizations, that move looks less like a retreat than a reprioritization of where and how it intends to compel circumstances. You can leave diplomatic forums and still double down on the invisible infrastructures that establish the real rules of engagement. Americans have been steadily building this advantage over decades. It’s why they can squeeze countries if they want, when they want.

That’s also why, to protect the autonomy and integrity of its markets, Canada must think seriously about the digital networks it needs to build and control itself. The Digital Governance Council is examining the building blocks of a homegrown payments architecture—how money moves between institutions, how users are authenticated, and how those systems might operate under Canadian rules. Canada has also committed, through G7 and G20 declarations, to erecting digital public infrastructure, much like the roads or electricity grids that underpin our physical economy.

Payments are a national security choke point. We need to reduce that dependency and build alternatives. We’ve got a sovereign debit solution in Interac, but there is no equivalent for credit or online transactions. That means purchases that matter most—like subscriptions, travel, in-app payments—still default to Visa or Mastercard and the American-adjacent firms wrapped around them.

Economic sovereignty is about more than just buying Canadian things. It’s also about whether we can keep buying things with tools we can trust. If our credit card infrastructure can be throttled by a petty, hostile actor, then we’re not governing our economy. Just ask Prost.