Prime Minister Mark Carney announced agreements with China on Friday in Beijing on reciprocal customs duties and on the import of electric vehicles, during a visit hailed as the start of a new partnership after years of estrangement.
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“Canada and China have reached a preliminary, but historic, trade agreement aimed at eliminating trade barriers and reducing customs duties,” Mr. Carney said during a press briefing on the sidelines of his visit, the first by a Canadian head of government in eight years.
Mr. Carney also announced that Canada would authorize the entry into Canada of 49,000 electric vehicles manufactured in China, at preferential customs duties of 6.1%, a return to the level prior to mutual retaliatory measures according to him.
During their meeting earlier in the day, Chinese President Xi Jinping also committed to waiving visas for Canadians coming to China, Mr. Carney said, without specifying whether this provision applied only to tourists or not.
These announcements concretize what Mr. Carney and Mr. Xi, at the start of their talks, presented as the advent of a new partnership, after years of anger between their countries now subject to American pressure.
“I am extremely pleased that we are moving forward with our new strategic partnership,” said Mark Carney.
His host at the People’s Palace spoke of a “new chapter” opened in October during their meeting on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in South Korea.
“Considerable investments”
These discussions, hailed at the time as a “turning point” by Mr. Carney, paved the way for the warming that materialized this week in China. Mr. Xi then invited Mr. Carney to China.
Since then, exchanges between the two governments to “restore and restart cooperation in various fields (…) have produced positive results,” Xi said on Friday. “I’m happy about it,” he said.
Mr. Carney arrived in China on Wednesday with the aim of turning the page on deteriorated relations and boosting trade.
Sino-Canadian relations deteriorated significantly in 2018 with the arrest by Canadian authorities of a manager of the Chinese giant Huawei at the request of the United States, followed by the imprisonment of two Canadian nationals in China, accused of espionage by Beijing.
Since the summer of 2024, Ottawa and Beijing have clashed on the trade front: Canadian surcharges on electric vehicles and Chinese steel, and Chinese responses on Canadian agricultural products, including canola, an oilseed used for food and biofuels, of which Canada is one of the main world producers.
“Canada expects China to reduce tariffs on Canadian canola seed by March 1,” Carney told reporters Friday.
As for electric vehicles, despite the concerns of the Canadian automobile sector, Mr. Carney said he hoped in the next three years for “considerable Chinese investments” to create jobs in Canada.
Facing Trump
He reiterated the need to reduce dependence on the American neighbor, the largest trading partner far ahead of China.
China and Canada have in common suffered the effects of President Donald Trump‘s aggressive policies since his return to the White House in January 2025.
Mr. Carney vowed to see Canada double its exports to countries other than the United States by 2035.
A new partnership between the two countries will help “improve the multilateral system, a system that has been strained in recent years,” Mr. Carney said Friday at the start of his discussions with Mr. Xi.
“We are focusing on areas where we can make historic progress: agriculture, energy and finance. This is where we can get the quickest results,” he said.
“Developing China-Canada relations in a healthy and stable manner serves the common interests of our two countries and contributes to global peace, stability and prosperity,” Xi said.
