The Sunday Editorial: Mark Carney walks a fine line on China |
Prime Minister Mark Carney has made his pivot toward China, a necessary move given the economic provocations and disruptions of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Mr. Carney’s somewhat cordial entente with Beijing includes a measured retreat on 100-per-cent electric-vehicle tariffs in return for renewed access for the Canadian agriculture sector to the Chinese market. Chinese EVs will be allowed into Canada, under a gradually rising quota ceiling.
Tariff rates for that quota will fall to the most-favoured-nation tariff rate of 6.1 per – much lower than that the European Union is currently imposing on Chinese EVs. In return, China is to partly roll back the retaliatory tariffs it imposed in 2024 on Canadian canola products, pork and seafood.
Canada reaches tariff deal with China on electric vehicles, canola
Longer term, Ottawa is holding out the prospect of Chinese investment in auto manufacturing in Canada, mirroring the successful approach taken with other Asian auto makers.
It’s all part of a broader understanding aimed at increasing Canadian exports to China by 50 per cent by 2030. And that push is part of the wider trade rebalancing that the Carney government is seeking as it looks to double non-U.S. exports in the coming decade.
Prime Minister Mark Carney shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday.Sean Kilpatrick/Reuters
All of this makes sense, in this moment. Canada’s EV tariffs were always bad policy, born of a desire to match moves by the United States and to build a protective wall around the fantasy of a domestic EV industry. Despite the protests of Ontario Premier Doug Ford, it simply did not make sense to make canola producers continue to suffer for those ill-starred ambitions.
Renewed, and growing, trade with China reduces the leverage that Mr. Trump can exert over Canada. But at the same time, the experience of the last 17 months plainly demonstrates the risks in allowing specific products to grow overly dependent on the Chinese market.
In 2024, 78 per cent of this country’s canola seed exports went to China; that handed Beijing the........