A New Year’s Resolution on Canadian Trade

For many, Canada’s greatest trade advantage had long been predicated on “familiarity” – familiar partners, familiar approaches, familiar value-based relationships. Canada’s new global trade strategy engages the world as it exists today: messy, competitive, but ripe with opportunity. This pivot was highlighted by the Prime Minister’s recent visits to China and Qatar, signalling an approach that manages risk without allowing uncertainty to paralyze engagement or to lock Canada into any singular relationship.

As Ottawa looks beyond the familiar, it conveys to organizations that opportunity, not orthodoxy, will increasingly guide where Canada is prepared to engage. Businesses that can make the productivity case to engage in non-traditional markets are finding a government more willing to listen, even when those markets sit outside Canada’s traditional business comfort zones.

This approach was clearest in China. A new bilateral economic roadmap has initiated further cooperation across conventional and clean energy, lumber, agriculture, electric vehicles, while also bringing about a partial stabilization of trade irritants.

However, interest in re-engaging commercially with China has not blurred Ottawa’s lines. Prime Minister Carney has been explicit that there is “no intention” of a free trade agreement and that cooperation will be bound by firm guardrails, particularly in AI, critical minerals, defence, and national security.

We are not the lone wolf setting off on this journey. Leaders of the U.K, France, Germany, and even the U.S. are all expected to visit Beijing before the summer. This is a race to build relations and allies in the global schoolyard, and Canada cannot afford to be the last to arrive.

And so, any credible Indo-Pacific Strategy must address China, but its inclusion need not be taboo nor anchor. This calibration offers a preview of how Canada will approach other complex partners this year, like India, through selective sectoral engagement that does not sacrifice sovereignty.

Canada’s renewed approach extends to the Gulf, with commitments from Qatar last week promising investment into ‘nation building’ projects across AI infrastructure, energy systems, and transportation corridors. Similar partnerships were also drawn from the UAE at the end of last year, building out a diversification strategy that includes long-horizon capital. If deployed well, these investments can withstand extended development timelines and political cycles, anchoring a more reliable stream of certainty for domestic nation-building.

This also signals to international investors that Canada is flexible, even with partners that may not be ideologically aligned on paper. With more trade missions to the region taking shape this year, the Gulf will be another one to watch closely.

And yet against all of the above, the biggest trade question hits closer to home: Does CUSMA survive?

While volatility and uncertainty remain, Prime Minister Carney states that Canada is “ready to sit down” with the U.S. and Mexico soon. At the same time, the Prime Minister’s Office had previously suggested in December that formal trade discussions would begin by January, a timeline that has since slipped. More recently, President Trump has raised the prospect of significant tariffs in response to Canada’s evolving relationship with China, notwithstanding that developments so far remain consistent with existing CUSMA rules. So, if and when treaty parties convene for the agreement’s review, Canada will need to cut through the noise to prioritize the maintenance of the pact, without compromising its strategic industries.

Ottawa is also exploring separate one-on-one arrangements with the U.S. and Mexico as contingency ahead of the July 1 deadline. This safeguard could elevate Mexico, to be viewed beyond the confines of a trilateral framework, potentially making them a larger partner for Canadian industry.

All this said, the U.S. will remain Canada’s most significant economic partner, accounting for $1.3 trillion in two-way annual trade. However, the Prime Minister’s renewed diversification strategy positions Canada for a new round of talks less exposed to single-market shocks, more confident in alternative capital, and better secured in its export pathways.

Dependence is no longer treated as destiny.

Canada’s global engagement is shifting from being an extension of national identity into a more deliberate tool for driving economic strength at home. Ottawa has yet to formally release its Trade Diversification Strategy, but the direction taking shape seems clear. In just six months, Canada has signed 12 trade and security agreements across four continents. For organizations keen to test new markets and develop new global relationships, now is the time to engage. Many a New Year’s resolution may falter by February, but Prime Minister Carney’s January promise appears designed to last.