Davos and Beijing: Mark Carney’s diplomatic response
Faced with these increasingly offensive signals, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to reposition his country on the international scene to reduce its dependence on the United States. Canada’s situation is critical with the increase in import customs duties imposed by American President Donald Trump. More than 75% of Canadian exports go to the United States, and the Prime Minister has set a goal of reducing this dependence by doubling Canadian exports to other countries over the next ten years.
In Davos, his speech was very noticed: he denounced the “rupture“of the international order, the”militarization“economic interdependencies and”coercitions“via tariffs and sanctions, calling on them”medium powers“like Canada to further defend their sovereignty.
Carney already stated that Canada “stands firmly with Greenland and Denmark” and opposes any attempt to challenge sovereignty over the island by economic or military means, clearly targeting the American campaign on Greenland. He also pleaded for a diversification of trade, by seeking to build a bridge between the Asia-Pacific and the European Union in order to reduce the weight of the American market in the Canadian economy.
In the process, Mark Carney went to China for a four-day visit, the first by a Canadian head of government to Beijing in eight years, with the stated objective of “rebuild“a very degraded bilateral relationship.
On January 16, the Canadian Prime Minister declared that his country was entering a new era of relations with China. “We are ready to build a new partnership, one that builds on the best of our past and meets the challenges of today” Carney wrote on X after arriving in Beijing.
This visit led to several memorandums of understanding, notably in energy, agri-food and climate transition, or the importation of Chinese vehicles into Canada and is part of an assumed strategy of commercial diversification to reduce dependence on an American partner who has become unpredictable.
