Prime Minister Mark Carney has returned from Beijing with a landmark trade agreement that drops duties on Chinese electric vehicles and restores Canadian canola exports.
The deal announced on Friday permits up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the country annually at a 6.1 per cent tariff rate. That figure rolls back the prohibitive 100 per cent barrier erected by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2024 to match American penalties. In exchange, Beijing drops its retaliatory duties on Canadian canola to 15 per cent, ending a dispute that cost farmers billions.
The annual import cap represents less than three per cent of total Canadian vehicle sales. The expanded auto terminal on Annacis Island will handle the incoming volume, with retail prices expected to sit under $40,000. "The inroads Canada has made this week are a sign that the government gets it and is showing Canadians and the world that we are open for business," Alexa Young with the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority said. Business groups in British Columbia welcomed the certainty, while Ontario Premier Doug Ford complained that Ottawa was inviting cheap imports without guaranteed local manufacturing investments.
University of Toronto Rotman School of Management Professor Dimitry Anastakis noted that the agreement is unlikely to disrupt assembly lines in Windsor, where plants largely serve an American market that has shifted away from electric models. But the real shift is geopolitical. Ottawa is finally pursuing economic diversification across the Pacific rather than waiting for permission from Washington, where protectionist demands treat our sovereignty as optional.
Carney has chosen to trade.
