Canada should deepen its ties with Saudi Arabia

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Thomas Juneau is a professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and an associate fellow with Chatham House.

This week’s visit by Prime Minister Mark Carney to Saudi Arabia marks a significant shift: Almost eight years ago, in August, 2018, Ottawa and Riyadh had a major diplomatic falling-out after Canada criticized Saudi Arabia’s human-rights record. But much has changed since 2018, and Canada now has a clear interest in deepening ties with the Kingdom.

First, Saudi Arabia has radically transformed in only a few years. There has not been – and will not be, for the foreseeable future – any political liberalization. But social and economic reforms are transforming the country. The de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is seeking to diversify the Saudi economy beyond its traditional dependence on hydrocarbons. He has also sought, with varying degrees of success, to play a much more assertive diplomatic role.

Secondly, the situation for Canada has also changed. Back in 2018, Canada could afford to damage its relations with Saudi Arabia and suffer, in practice, a limited price at most. Today, Canada is confronting the brutal reality that its most important trade and security partner, the United States, is not as reliable as it was long assumed to be.

The end of the Saudi mirage

This is an assessment that Ottawa and Riyadh share. Both have long been reliant on their close relations with Washington; both realize how vulnerable the transformation of American foreign policy has made them; and as a result, both are seeking to diversify their partnerships. Both are also dealing with the fact that “diversifying” is much easier said than done.

For Canada, the basic constraining reality of geography means that we are condemned to keep our southern neighbour as our main trade and security partner; there is simply no plausible scenario whereby we can replace the U.S. The best we can (and should) aim for is to reduce and position ourselves to better manage this dependence. For Saudi Arabia, its reliance on the United States as the extraregional guarantor of its security means that it must somewhat grudgingly remain under the American security umbrella, even as it seeks more partners.

It is essential to place this common interest in perspective. Canada is not a top priority for Saudi Arabia, any more than Saudi Arabia is a top priority for Canada. From Ottawa’s perspective, the No. 1 foreign policy interest remains managing relations with Washington. Next on the list are relations with Europe and NATO, and in third, deepening ties in the Indo-Pacific area. The Persian Gulf – Saudi Arabia, but also Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and their neighbours – arguably comes in fourth.

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For Riyadh, a similar calculus emerges: Canada ranks as a genuine but much lower priority behind relations with the United States, with other great powers, with its neighbours and with other middle powers such as Ukraine, France, Britain or South Korea.

Canada and Saudi Arabia thus have a mutual interest in deepening ties, though one that is constrained by the reality of a limited bandwidth to deal with the other. The war against Iran only reinforced this trend, as it underlined the unreliability and unpredictability of a rogue United States that is even more dismissive of its traditional partnerships.

There are several areas where Ottawa and Riyadh can focus the limited attention they are willing to invest in bilateral ties. As with the UAE and Qatar, Canada should aim to attract Saudi investment here and to boost two-way trade. On the diplomatic front, both share interests in supporting the Palestinian Authority and in food security. And traditionally, our countries have also co-operated closely, with much success, in education: Thousands of Saudis, in particular, have pursued medical studies and attended teaching colleges here.

Saudi Arabia and its neighbours are also keen to see middle powers such as Canada and its European allies support them in boosting their security against the Islamic Republic of Iran. This could take many forms, including in contributions to maritime security in the Gulf or intelligence co-operation.

Canada still has legitimate disagreements with Saudi Arabia, whether on human rights or a range of foreign policy issues. But in 2026, we simply cannot afford to focus on these differences. With Saudi Arabia, as with other states, Canada needs to pragmatically identify areas of common interests and assertively pursue them – and that means turning the page on its 2018 dispute with Riyadh.