Ottawa, Jan 25 (.) Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada has no intention of pursuing a free-trade deal with China, and a recently signed deal with Beijing amounted to a rectification of existing issues.
Carney was responding to US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 100-per-cent tariff on Canada if it makes a trade deal with China.
Carney told reporters that under the US-Mexico-Canada free-trade deal, also known as CUSMA, there are commitments not to pursue free-trade agreements with non-market economies without prior notification.
“We have no intention of doing that with China or any other non-market economy,” Carney said.
He described the deal with China as going “back to the future” with respect to electric vehicles and other food products. “It’s entirely consistent with CUSMA, with our obligations, which we very much respect under CUSMA, and will continue to work that way.”
US President Trump continued to voice his displeasure on Sunday afternoon, arguing on his Truth Social account that “China is successfully and
completely taking over the once great country of Canada. So sad to see it happen.”
That post came one day after Trump threatened to impose a 100 per cent tariff on all Canadian goods entering the US if Canada “makes a deal with China.”
“If Governor Carney thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken,” the US president wrote in his post — referring to PM Carney as governor, a jab he often reserved for Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau.
Canada and China struck a strategic partnership earlier this month to boost ties and allow Chinese investors to play a larger role in Canada’s economy. During a four-day visit to Beijing, Carney praised China as a more predictable trading partner than the United States and broke with Washington over tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles.
Prime Minister Carney agreed to allow nearly 50,000 Chinese-made electric vehicles into Canada at a low tariff instead of a 100-per-cent tariff Ottawa imposed on these imports in 2024, along with the former Biden administration. In return, Beijing scaled back retaliatory tariffs on canola seed, Canada’s No. 1 export to China.
On Sunday, Trump posted again about Canada, saying this country “is systematically destroying itself. The China deal is a disaster for them. Will go down as one of the worst deals, of any kind, in history.” He also said that China “is successfully and completely taking over the once Great Country of Canada,” adding, “I only hope they leave Ice Hockey alone!”
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that new tariffs would be dependent on a new free trade deal between China and Canada that goes further than the recently signed pact.
He told the American news program This Week with George Stephanopoulos it is also dependent on whether the US sees Canada allowing China to dump goods, and linked the issue to the coming renegotiations of the USMCA.
“We can’t let Canada become an opening that the Chinese pour their cheap goods into the U.S. We have a USMCA agreement, which is going to be renegotiated this summer, and I’m not sure what Prime Minister Carney is doing here, other than trying to virtue-signal to his globalist friends at Davos,” Bessent said.
“I don’t think he’s doing the best job for the Canadian people.”
The new tariff threat is the latest attack by Trump on PM Carney since the latter delivered a provocative speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that amounted to a veiled attack on the damage the U.S. President has done to the international rules-based order.
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