Canadian Prime Minister Carney travels to Asia to strengthen trade ties and lessen Canada’s dependency on the US
Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, starts a week-long trip to Asia to improve trade and security ties and to find new export markets.
Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, is on his first official trip to Asia. He wants to strengthen trade and security ties with Asian countries and make Canada less reliant on the US.
Government sources said that Carney’s trip, which started on Friday and will last a week, may include a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This could be an attempt to calm down a relationship that is tense because of a trade war that is still going on.
Analysts think that Canada needs to show Asian leaders that it now has its own goals that are different from those of Washington through this visit.
Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, said, “Carney needs to make it clear that Canada stands out and is still interested in rules-based trade and globalization, even though the world economy is breaking up.”
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit will take place in Kuala Lumpur, and Carney will hold talks in Singapore and take part in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea.
Canada and Indonesia signed a trade deal in September that lets up to 95% of Canada’s shipped goods go to Indonesia duty-free within a year. Canada is now trying to reach deals like this with the Philippines, Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan, according to Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu.
Even though Canada is trying to expand its trade with other countries, about 75% of its goods still go to the US. The visit comes as US President Donald Trump gets ready to go to Malaysia before next week’s meeting with Xi Jinping in South Korea.
Fen Hampson, an international affairs professor at Carleton University, said that Asia has a lot more business chances for Canada than Europe. Since becoming prime minister in March, Carney has been to Europe three times.
Hampson said, “The economies in Southeast Asia are much more dynamic and work well with Canada when it comes to trade in energy and goods.”
But he warned that any deals that might be made with China would be shaped by the problems between Washington and Beijing. “Prime Minister Carney will have less room to move as tensions rise between the US and China,” Hampson said.
He also said that Canada and China will probably not be able to settle their ongoing tariff disputes over canola and electric cars until they get along better with each other. “The Americans are putting a lot of pressure on us not to give up to what they see as their rival,” Hampson said.
