Federal Government: Strengthening Canadian Relationships: 1)China’s top diplomat hails new relations with Canada amid “complex” global changes; 2)Ford, Unifor sound alarm over China EV deal; 3)China’s top diplomat hails new relations with Canada amid “complex” global changes; 4)Prime Minister Carney lands in Beijing, kicking off trade mission; 5)Eurasia Group says no country more at risk than Canada in relations with the U.S.

1)Carney reaches tariff-quota deal with China on EVs, canola

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Kyle Duggan, January 16, 2026

The Liberal government has reached a deal with Beijing to slash tariffs on a set number of Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for China dropping duties on agriculture products, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday.It marks the prime minister’s first deal on trade since taking office last year and a de-escalation in tensions with a country the Liberal government had, in recent years, branded a disruptive power.
Carney described it as a “preliminary but landmark” agreement to remove trade barriers and reduce tariffs, part of a broader strategic partnership with China.
“It’s a partnership that reflects the world as it is today, with an engagement that is realistic, respectful and interest-based,” Carney said at a news conference in Beijing.

Carney said Ottawa expects Beijing to drop canola seed duties to 15 per cent from 84 per cent by March 1, and called that “enormous progress.”

Canadian canola meal, lobsters, crabs and peas will no longer be subject to Chinese “anti-discrimination” tariffs from March to at least the end of the year. There was no mention of canola oil, which is subject to a 100 per cent tariff.

In return, up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles will be allowed into the Canadian market each year at a 6.1 per cent tariff instead of the current 100 per cent tariff. 

By 2030, half of those imported vehicles will cost less than $35,000 — a measure that Carney said will ensure EVs are more affordable for Canadians. 
He added the 49,000 vehicles represents approximately the number imported from China in 2023, before the tariffs, and is less than three per cent of the Canadian domestic auto market.
The pact comes just hours after Carney met with President Xi Jinping, ending a multi-year trade dispute that began when the previous Liberal government levied EV tariffs to protect Canada’s auto sector.

In late 2024, Ottawa followed moves by former U.S. president Joe Biden and the European Union to counter China’s rapidly growing electric vehicle industry. 

Former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government imposed 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, arguing the prospect of dumping cheap, heavily subsidized EVs constituted a threat to the North American auto sector.

China responded in March 2025 with a 100 per cent tariff on Canadian canola oil, peas and other products, along with 25 per cent on pork and seafood products such as lobster. 
The move halted exports of canola oil, strangled exports of canola meal and peas and throttled pork as well. 

That was followed by a levy of almost 76 per cent on Canadian canola seed in August that year, which ratcheted up pressure on Ottawa from the Prairies to ease the escalating trade tensions.
China’s anti-dumping investigation into canola seeds was set to wrap up in March.
Canada is the top global exporter of canola and China is the industry’s second-largest market after the U.S.

Ottawa had also slapped a 25 per cent import tax on Chinese steel and aluminum in October 2024.
Greg Cherewyk, president of Pulse Canada, was in Beijing as part of the Canadian delegation and said the deal was welcome news. 

Tariffs had effectively stopped all shipments of Canadian peas to China, the world’s largest market, and Cherewyk said Canadian yellow peas worth about $700 million a year were displaced by Russian products.
“It was really important that this didn’t last as long as we had feared it would last, into the years. It was resolved in what really amounts to a short period of time,” he said, adding that the timing is ideal for farmers in Canada to make seeding decisions. 

Just a year ago during the spring election, Carney described China as the biggest security threat facing Canada. Speaking to media Friday, his answer to a reporter’s question was less clear-cut.
“The security landscape continues to change, and in a world that’s more dangerous and divided, we face many threats,” Carney replied when asked by a reporter. “You manage the threats through engagement.”
The deal also comes as the Liberal government seeks to double non-U.S. exports by 2030 — and boost them by 50 per cent to China by that date as well.
Carney said he raised human rights in the meeting with Xi, and said Canada has a “value-based realism” to its approach.

“We fundamentally stand up for human rights, for democracy, territorial integrity, rights to self-determination,” he said. “We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.”

Carney and Xi met in the fall on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in South Korea. It marked the first official meeting between the leaders of Canada and China since 2017.
On Friday, Xi described that as a “turnaround” in bilateral relations.
In the wake of that key meeting last fall, both leaders directed their officials to work on resolving lasting trade irritants.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe travelled to China for some of the top-level meetings — a key priority for him since the tariffs have been punishing a major Prairie crop. His province makes up for just over half of Canada’s total canola production.
Moe also travelled to China in September alongside federal officials, hoping to resolve the dispute.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has maintained the EV tariffs should remain unless China opens an EV factory in Ontario and hires unionized Canadian workers. 

Carney said in French that Canada expects engagement on domestic investment, and noted the future of the auto industry is in electric vehicles.

2)Ford, Unifor sound alarm over China EV deal

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Ian Bickis and Sarah Ritchie, January 16, 2026

Ontario politicians and Canada’s largest private sector union are slamming Canada’s new trade agreement with China, saying it puts domestic auto jobs at risk with no guarantee of investments.

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Friday that Canada has agreed to slash its 100 per cent tariff on Chinese EVs for up to 49,000 vehicles per year.

In exchange, China will drop or significantly reduce its retaliatory tariffs on Canadian agriculture products, including canola seed and meal, pork, seafood and peas.

Carney has framed the deal as a new strategic partnership with China that presents enormous opportunities for Canada.

“It’s a partnership that reflects the world as it is today, with an engagement that is realistic, respectful and interest-based,” Carney said at a news conference in Beijing.

But Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Unifor national president Lana Payne say it’s giving unfairly subsidized Chinese automakers a foothold in Canada that puts the Canadian industry at risk.

“This is going to be terrible, for not only just all the people of Ontario, but especially the auto manufacturers, the supply chain,” said Ford during a media scrum Friday.

He called the deal lopsided and warned it risks closing the door to the U.S. market for Canadian automakers, while also raising concerns about the security risks the cars pose.

“It’s just a terrible, terrible, miscalculated decision by the Prime Minister.”

The deal rewards labour violations and unfair trade practices, said Unifor’s Payne in a news release.

“This is a self-inflicted wound to an already injured Canadian auto industry,” she said.

“Finding a resolution to U.S. auto tariffs just got more difficult.”

The federal government has noted that along with benefits to other sectors seeing reduced tariffs, the deal for 49,000 vehicles at a lower 6.1 per cent tariff represents less than three per cent of the Canadian market for new vehicle sales. It’s also the same volume of EVs that came in from China in 2023-2024 before Canada followed the U.S. in hiking tariffs to protect domestic producers.

The government also said that it expects within three years for the deal to drive “considerable” Chinese joint-venture investment in Canada to create new auto manufacturing jobs, but both Ford and Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles blasted the lack of firm commitments.

“Let me be clear: Mark Carney is selling out our auto sector,” said Stiles in a social media post. “Our workers deserve guarantees – you don’t protect an industry with maybes.”

But with little to no Chinese EV presence in Canada, it’s hard to imagine the government could have secured a production guarantee, said Greig Mordue, associate professor at McMaster University’s W Booth School of Engineering.

“It’s a smart policy. Doesn’t give us a Chinese auto plant, but I don’t think anything would. So this is fine,” said Mordue, who previously was general manager of Toyota’s Canadian division.

He said the quota system was also how the federal government approached the rising threat of Japanese producers Toyota and Honda in the early 1980s, while a few years later the government used their established sales as leverage to push them to built plants in Canada.

He said the limited quota might not even be enough to incentivize Chinese brands to enter the Canadian market, but could see more China-produced Teslas, Polestars and Volkswagens come in. Either way, it’s not enough to affect domestic automakers, he said.

“This has virtually no impact on Canadian production.”

Longer-term, there could be cheaper options though. The Canadian government said “it is anticipated” that in five years, 50 per cent of the Chinese EVs coming in will have an import price of less than $35,000. The quota of low-tariff vehicles is also set to rise to 70,000 by then.

Ford said that while the deal has small volumes now, it gives China a foothold into the Canadian market that it will use to its full advantage at the expense of Canadian workers.

“They start off with always saying three per cent. Ask people in Brazil what happens to three per cent; turns into 37 per cent. Ask the people over in Europe.”

The EU saw Chinese-built electric cars jump from 3.9 per cent of its EV market in 2020 to 25 per cent by September 2023, prompting the block to impose a range of tariffs up to 35.3 per cent as it alleged unfair trade practices. Though it has started to move instead towards minimum prices for Chinese EVs.

The block has said companies in China accomplished the market gains with the help of subsidies all along the chain of production, from cheap land for factories from local governments to below-market supplies of lithium and batteries from state-owned enterprises to tax breaks and below-interest financing from state-controlled banks.

Ford said the Chinese-made cars not only raise security concerns but are being produced at artificially low costs.

“They’re heavily subsidized, totally against all the autoworkers here in Ontario,” he said.

“This is not a good situation for the auto sector as a whole.”

— With files from Allison Jones in Toronto and The Associated Press.

3)China’s top diplomat hails new relations with Canada amid “complex” global changes

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Kyle Duggan, January 15, 2026

China’s top diplomat hails new relations with Canada amid “complex” global changes

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand met with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Beijing, who told Anand that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit marks a turning point in Canada-China relations.

Wang says the progress between the two countries will lead to opening up new prospects for relations amid unprecedented and complex changes taking place in the world.

The meeting comes ahead of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s bilateral meeting scheduled for Friday with President Xi Jinping.

Carney is set to meet with the second and third most powerful leaders in Beijing’s communist system, including the premier who oversees China’s economy and the chairman of the national congress.

The Liberals are under pressure to convince Beijing to repeal or lower agricultural tariffs hurting Atlantic and western provinces — but that would result in some sort of trade-off with Canada’s levies on Chinese electric vehicles that Ontario Premier Doug Ford maintains are essential to protecting domestic jobs.

Anand has said the Liberals are seeking to advance economic benefits for all regions of Canada through this Beijing visit — and while the trip has a heavy trade focus, she says this will touch on issues that go beyond just economic concerns.

4) Prime Minister Carney lands in Beijing, kicking off trade mission

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Kyle Duggan, Jan. 14, 2026.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has landed in Beijing, marking the first visit by a Canadian prime minister to China in eight years.

Carney will meet with senior communist leaders Thursday ahead of a Friday meeting with President Xi Jinping and a business banquet.

It’s the first visit by a Canadian prime minister since China detained two Canadians for nearly three years in 2019 in retaliation for the arrest of a Chinese tech executive in Vancouver on a U.S. extradition warrant.

Carney has talked about advancing trade and environmental co-operation with China, while keeping Beijing away from sectors that touch on national security or the Arctic.

A major issue this week will be China’s heavy tariffs on pork, canola and seafood, which were imposed after Ottawa ordered tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, steel and aluminum.

Western and Atlantic premiers are hoping China drops these tariffs, with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe visiting China during Carney’s stay, but Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday he’s “very concerned” Canada might drop policies he said are necessary to protect the auto sector.

Experts see the trip as a short but consequential visit, as China and Canada try to move past years of diplomatic tensions and Ottawa pushes to double non-U.S. trade by 2035.

“It is Carney’s pragmatic foreign policy in action,” said Asia Pacific Foundation vice-president Vina Nadjibulla.

“There is not going to be one word that can describe this relationship, but the public messaging around it needs to continue to be clear-eyed, fully recognizing the complexities of the relationship.”

Carney will meet with senior communist leaders Thursday ahead of a Friday meeting with President Xi Jinping and a business banquet.

It comes after years of warnings about Chinese electoral interference in Canada, mounting human rights concerns involving the Uyghur minority and free speech in Hong Kong, and military actions aimed at broadening China’s territory beyond the nautical zone laid out by the United Nations.

Those issues prompted the Liberals in 2022 to brand China a “disruptive global power” that does not share Canada’s values.

Carney’s government has since described Beijing as strategic partner, and recently advised two Liberal MPs to quit a Taiwan visit early to avoid confusion over Ottawa’s policy of not recognizing the self-governing island as an independent country.

Dylan Loh, a professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore who focuses on China’s foreign policy, said Beijing needs better diplomatic relations with other countries and hopes to profit from the pushback Washington is generating through its aggressive foreign policy.

China’s leaders are also grappling with high youth unemployment and property market woes, he said.

“From Beijing’s perspective, they are viewing this not just in isolation. They’re viewing Canada as part of the broader story,” he said. “Part of it is having a conducive external environment geopolitically, economically, such that they feel secure at home.”

Loh said he expects Carney and Xi will sign “low-hanging-fruit agreements” and offer “some allusion to resetting the relationship or starting again from a clean slate” — but it will come at some cost.

“It’s quite clear that in return for normalization of economic relations, they will want to see a less antagonistic position that Canada will take with regards to Beijing’s interests,” he said.

Beijing has asked Ottawa repeatedly to acknowledge that it caused the rift in diplomatic relations. Loh said Ottawa could be more reconciliatory behind closed doors without “caving into pressure in public” and fully satisfying China.

“They want to see that Canada has learned its lesson, and that needs to be manifest in some way,” he said.

Carney has talked of advancing trade and environmental co-operation with China, while keeping Beijing away from sectors that touch on national security or the Arctic.

Loh said China normally does not like to compartmentalize parts of a relationship and prefers to link trade, security and other matters together. But he said Beijing has accepted limited engagement with Canada’s peers, such as the European Union.

Nadjibulla says there could be movement on energy, such as agreement to export more Canadian oil and gas to China and possibly clean energy. She said that regardless of any tangible progress, Canada needs to resist any attempt by China to suggest Ottawa is in “strategic alignment” in China when “pragmatic economic engagement” is Carney’s only goal.

“Beijing will try to use this trip as a diplomatic win, and as part of its broader strategic narrative around China being a more responsible major power, contrasting it to the U.S. — and of course, drawing attention to the challenges Canada is having currently with the U.S.,” she said.

“We have to be much more cautious around that.”

Nadjibulla added that any moves Canada makes will be closely watched by Washington ahead of negotiations this year on the North American trade deal. The visit will also have practical implications for Canada’s relationships across the Indo-Pacific, where many countries are trying to resist coercion from both Washington and Beijing.

Graham Shantz, president of the Canada China Business Council, said Carney might take up the Australian approach of continuing to criticize China on human rights grounds while pursuing trade that boosts both economies.

He said Canada is “underinvested” in China, to the detriment of manufacturers, service providers and educational institutions.

Shantz, whose group is hosting a Friday banquet dinner in Beijing, said Canada should also engage with China on issues like exchange rate policies.

“It will be critical to Canada and to Canadian interests to understand both what we want, and then also to understand how we need to negotiate for that, within the context of how China works,” he said.

“China is usually very well prepared for understanding who they are and what they want. It’s important for Canada to be well prepared.”

China is expected to launch its next five-year plan in March. Shantz said it would be smart for Carney to seek out areas where Canada could benefit from economic partnerships. Carney is expected to be back in China for the APEC summit in November; Shantz said that could be a way to touch base on the state of economic ties.

A major issue this week will be China’s heavy tariffs on Canadian pork, canola and seafood. China imposed the tariffs after Ottawa ordered tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, steel and aluminum.

Experts say the automotive tariffs respond to Canadian concerns about China’s subsidized output flooding the market and deindustrializing local sectors. But the Canadian tariffs followed closely on almost identical moves by Washington, which has long argued that Chinese cars could pose national security risks.

Beijing sees Ottawa as having taken part in American efforts to prevent China’s economic rise. The China Daily editorial board — which is known to reflect the views of the Chinese Communist Party — on Monday said Canada had enacted “policies to contain China in lockstep with the United States.”

It said Carney must show his new approach to China “is not just a makeshift move to reduce the bill being charged by the U.S. If Ottawa still chooses to subject its China policy to the will of Washington again in the future, it will only render its previous efforts to mend ties with Beijing in vain.”

The editorial also said China wants “a fair, open and nondiscriminatory business environment for Chinese enterprises,” which many see as a call to drop investment and research restrictions Ottawa has put in place on national security grounds.

Loh said it’s important that Canadians manage their expectations for Carney’s visit.

“There are some areas of deep disagreements between Canada and Beijing, and one visit is not going to resolve (all of) it,” he said.

—With files from Dylan Robertson in Ottawa

5)Eurasia Group says no country more at risk than Canada in relations with the U.S.

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Alessia Passafiume, January 10, 2026

Canada stands to face the biggest fallout of political turmoil in the United States in 2026, a new report by the Eurasia Group warned on Friday. 

The risk management firm says the long-standing relationship between the two countries “is history” and ongoing trade uncertainty will have an impact on the Canadian economy.

“(U.S. President Donald) Trump’s systematic effort to dismantle checks on his power and weaponize the machinery of government against his political enemies will inevitably reshape not only Canada-U.S. relations, but the Canadian economy and Canadians’ engagement with the rest of the world,” the report says.

“The challenge for Ottawa — and Canadian firms more broadly — will be to play defence and offence at the same time: managing an unpredictable and unreliable U.S. while carving out new roles in an increasingly unstable G-Zero world.”

The report warns Canada’s efforts to diversify trade and international relationships will face “powerful headwinds” this year, and that it will need to manage its relations with the U.S. while building new ones with other countries.

The relationship between Canada and the U.S. soured in 2024 following President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and his threats to somehow make Canada a U.S. state.

Trump has imposed multiple tariffs on Canada in the months since, including devastating duties on the steel, aluminum, automotive and lumber sectors.

Citing the recent U.S. military operation in Venezuela to capture President Nicolas Maduro, the report says Trump’s desire to dominate the Western Hemisphere will “keep Canada on the defensive.” It says Carney’s government will have to defend Canadian sovereignty while acknowledging the degree to which Canada depends on the U.S.

Eurasia Group’s report says Canada was “comfortable” with its deep ties to the U.S. for decades, but the relationship has changed and Washington’s actions could see Canadian companies and investors “become collateral damage.”

Diana Fox Carney, wife of Prime Minister Mark Carney, is affiliated with the Eurasia Group and Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon used to work with the group before entering politics. Gerald Butts, the vice-chairman of Eurasia Group, has been an unofficial adviser to Carney.

The report says Trump’s actions in the U.S. could lead to domestic political revolution, which would put foreign trade and defence ties with Canada into question.

It warns of a “Zombie USMCA” trade deal between the U.S., Mexico and Canada that is up for review this year. The report predicts that deal won’t be formally renegotiated, extended or terminated, and will instead be a “zombie, neither fully dead nor alive.”

Carney campaigned on reaching a new trade deal with the U.S. but has since said he won’t sign one unless it’s good for Canadians.

Washington ceased trade talks with Canada after the government of Ontario Premier Doug Ford released an anti-tariff ad in the U.S. quoting former president Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs.

“The good news is that tariff exemptions for CUSMA-compliant goods will keep free trade on life support, leaving Canada (and Mexico) with lower average effective U.S. tariff rates than much of the world,” the report says.

“The bad news is that Trump will use sectoral tariffs on goods such as autos, steel and aluminum — sectors he is bent on reshoring to the U.S. — as leverage in endless negotiations, where Washington will seek to divide and conquer Ottawa and Mexico City.”

As Canada seeks to diversify its trading relationships, Eurasia Group is warning that European countries are divided and dealing with a changing political environment. It says the U.K., France and Germany “face paralysis at best and destabilization at worst.”

It also warns of Russian “hybrid attacks” on Canadian Forces to punish Canada for its staunch support for Ukraine.

“While Europe’s rearmament will create opportunities for Canada and Canadian firms to deepen strategic and commercial ties with the continent, pressure on NATO states to respond to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s provocations risk pulling Canada into a NATO-Russia crisis this year,” it says.

The report also says China’s weakened economy is producing cheap products that, if accessed by Canada, could ruin the automotive sector and risk further rifts with the U.S.

Carney will meet with President Xi Jinping in Beijing next week as he makes the first official trip to China by a Canadian prime minister in more than eight years.

The China visit is part of Ottawa’s efforts to restore ties with Beijing after years of trade and political tensions.

The diplomatic relationship between Canada and China nearly disintegrated in 2018 following Canada’s arrest of a Chinese telecom executive at the request of the United States. Beijing subsequently jailed two Canadians who had been working in China — acts which Canada called arbitrary.

Trade relations have also suffered. Canada has imposed a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles and a 25 per cent import tax on steel and aluminum over the last two years.

China responded by hitting Canada with a 100 per cent tariff on various agricultural products last March, including canola and peas, plus a 25 per cent levy on pork and seafood products.

The report also warns any efforts by Canada to regulate artificial intelligence may be met with pushback from the U.S. and the American companies largely leading the development of these products.

It points to the digital services tax Canada rescinded and legislation on online streaming and news content that has angered the U.S.

“Yet much of AI’s potential will come from smaller, leaner, purpose-built models — exactly the niche where Canada’s AI ecosystem is positioned to thrive,” the report says.

“If Canada can withstand U.S. pressure and sustain the funding necessary to develop and retain AI talent, there is no ceiling on the future growth of the Canadian sector.”

— With files from David Baxter and Dylan Robertson