Choosing a trade partner can be even more difficult than choosing a friend, because sometimes those you choose don’t play nicely with each other.
Last week, Canada continued our recent string of deal-signings by inking some new agreements with China, removing tariffs on some Canadian agricultural products and giving China a radically-reduced tariff for a small number of electric vehicles.
People on both sides are sounding off. Some say that China is a potential security threat and asking them to make investments or even tying our success to theirs has great risk. Others say we need to expand global access for Canadian products, and relying too much on the U.S. has left Canada vulnerable, especially as our southern neighbour has been acting more erratically.
The truth of the matter is, they are both right.
Let’s not forget that China was the country that arrested two Canadians on nonsensical charges of espionage after we detained the Chief Financial Officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei on an outstanding U.S. warrant and also banned Huawei from our new 5G network for security reasons. The Canadians were held for more than 1,000 days.
That being said, our biggest trading partner (the U.S.) has become completely unreliable, and their recent military action in Venezuela and threats against Cuba and Greenland (part of NATO through Denmark), demonstrate increasingly erratic activity which indicate that our foreign policy objectives are drifting further apart.
It is vital that we work on our own defence, independent of other relationships and trade deals, and also find a “made in Canada” trade policy that is uniquely our own.
Trust must be earned and also maintained, but trade and trust aren’t the same thing, and in 2026 it seems like if we want more of the first then we must first develop more of the second.
I’m Paul Martin and that’s what I see looking Beyond the Headlines.
