Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” and tariff deals with China on Friday after a four-day visit that analysts said was an effort reset a deeply troubled relationship amid Canada’s efforts to diversify trade away from the United States.
Carney announced the easing of some of the tariffs the two countries had imposed on each other, with Canada agreeing to allow in 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles at a much-reduced tariff of 6.1%, while China will cut canola seed tariffs to about 15%.
The moves were a sign of how President Donald Trump’s levies on allies and adversaries alike are reordering global economic relationships, pushing two of the United States’ largest trading partners closer together after years of strained ties to offset the costs.
Earlier in the day, Carney met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who described the visit as part of a “turnaround” in Sino-Canadian ties.
China, Canada’s second-largest trading partner after the United States, imposed steep tariffs on Canadian agricultural goods, including rapeseed and beef, last year. Those duties were retaliation for Canada’s levies on Chinese-made electric vehicles, steel, and aluminum. Ottawa announced those tariffs in 2024, as part of an effort to align itself with U.S. policy on China.
Despite the easing of some tariffs and the optimistic words from both leaders, the visit was largely an opening “icebreaker,” said Zhao Minghao, deputy director of the Fudan University Center for American Studies. Sino-Canadian ties, he added, still face “many difficulties, especially in areas like ideology and national security. It’s an exploratory process, and they are focusing on the so-called low-hanging fruit first.”
Reflecting the assessments of many other analysts, Zhao also said the most striking part of the visit was the way Canada was “using the restoration of ties with China as a way to de-risk its relationship with the U.S.”
Carney’s visit was the first by a Canadian prime minister in nearly a decade, and Sino-Canadian ties have been in a deep freeze for nearly as long. But Canada has been seeking a thaw as part of an effort to diversify trade away amid Trump’s tariffs and threats to use “economic force” to make it the 51st state.
For Canada, a country caught in the middle between China and the United States — its two largest trading partners — the trade diversification strategy has meant knotty choices. For Carney, a political rookie who won a federal election last year by casting himself as the best person to manage the break in U.S.-Canada ties, the China visit has required walking a tightrope.
Carney’s predecessor and fellow Liberal, Justin Trudeau, was the last Canadian prime minister to travel to China. He, too, sought closer economic relations with Beijing, but his 2017 visit ended with the two sides deeply divided on several issues and without an expected announcement on the start of formal free trade talks.
That chasm only widened the next year, after China detained two Canadians — former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessperson Michael Spavor — in what was widely viewed as retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Meng Wanzhou, a Huawei executive wanted in the U.S. on bank and wire fraud charges.
The “two Michaels,” as they were known in Canada, were held in secret prisons on vague charges of espionage and stealing state secrets, allegations for which China never provided evidence. They were tried in secret proceedings from which Canadian diplomats were barred, in violation of a consular agreement between the two countries.
The Canadians were released in 2021, after Meng reached a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that allowed her to return to China in exchange for acknowledging some wrongdoing in the criminal case. A Pew Research Center poll that year found a record of more than 70% of Canadians had an “unfavorable” view of China — up from 45% in 2018.
Canadian intelligence officials have accused China of “clandestinely and deceptively” seeking to interfere in Canada’s federal elections with the goal of supporting candidates favorable to its strategic interests. They have also alleged that the country conducts transnational repression in Canada, targeting dissidents and lawmakers who are vocal opponents of Beijing.
Critics of Carney’s rapprochement of China have argued that closer ties could spell trouble, given Beijing’s history of weaponizing access to its markets. Not long after the two Michaels were detained, China imposed tariffs on Canadian canola in what was widely viewed here as further retaliation for Meng’s arrest.
Opponents of the recalibration in the relationship have also warned that it could draw the ire of the Trump administration, which has been seeking to curtail China’s influence, ahead of a planned review this year of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Chris LaCivita, a former Trump campaign manager, said on X that drawing closer to China “won’t end well for Carney.”
Canadian officials and businesses view the continued existence of the North American free-trade pact as critical for the country’s economic prosperity. More than 70% of Canadian exports have typically gone to the United States. But Trump, who brokered the USMCA and called it “the best agreement we’ve ever made,” said this week that he doesn’t “really care about it.”
“There’s no real advantage to us,” Trump told reporters in Dearborn, Mich., renewing fears in Canada that he could rip the deal up. “It’s irrelevant to me. … Canada wants it. They need it. We don’t.”
Carney has been unable to reach a deal to ease the tariffs that the U.S. has imposed on Canadian goods. In October, Trump terminated all trade talks with Canada over a television advertisement critical of tariffs that was broadcast on U.S. networks and paid for by the government of Ontario. Canadian officials said they were close to a deal before Trump suspended negotiations.
At home, the China reset has also proved tricky.
Provincial leaders and farmers in the prairie provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which have been hardest hit by the Chinese tariffs, have long pressed Carney to ease the levies on China. But the move is poised to anger officials in the province of Ontario, the heart of Canada’s auto industry.
Officials there have supported the tariffs on China, viewing them as necessary for protecting Canadian auto jobs and citing national security concerns. Canada’s auto sector is facing an existential crisis, analysts say, because of Trump’s tariffs on autos, steel, and aluminum. Trump administration officials have repeatedly asserted they do not want to make cars with Canada.
Trump’s tariffs and threats against Canadian sovereignty have infuriated Canadians. A Pew Research Center poll in July found that 59% of Canadians view the United States as their country’s top threat, while just 17% see China that way.
