Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand said Ottawa was working 'with alacrity' to finalize a free trade deal with ASEAN it has been negotiating since 2021.Hasnoor Hussain/Reuters
If Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand wasn’t clear about the importance of her trip to Asia this week, U.S. President Donald Trump underlined it for her late Thursday.
In announcing new tariffs on Canadian goods and throwing yet another wrench into the country’s most important economic relationship, Mr. Trump exemplified why Ottawa has been scrambling to find new trading partners in order to reduce Canada’s reliance on its neighbour to the south.
Whether that is possible is debatable, given that the U.S. currently accounts for more than 68 per cent of all Canadian trade, but it has supercharged ongoing efforts to strengthen economic ties in Asia, even as Ottawa is still working to smooth over diplomatic spats with the region’s two largest economies, China and India.
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Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Malaysia – before Mr. Trump’s announcement Thursday – Ms. Anand said Ottawa was working “with alacrity” to finalize a free trade deal with the bloc it has been negotiating since 2021.
“It is complex, but we are very much looking forward to it being completed as soon as possible,” she told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
Taken together, the 10-member ASEAN would comprise Canada’s sixth-largest trading partner, though Ottawa already has free trade agreements with four of its member countries – Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam – via their shared membership in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
In an interview with Bloomberg News, Ms. Anand drew a contrast between Canada and the U.S., noting that Ottawa wants to “show the world that as there is global stress in the geostrategic environment, Canada is a partner that will always show up to open the doors to trade … to open the doors to multilateralism.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.Vincent Thian/The Associated Press
It was a far more palatable message than that of her U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also in Malaysia this week, defending Mr. Trump’s stringent tariffs on some of Southeast Asia’s poorest countries.
But while Canada may come offering carrots rather than sticks, Asian countries are likely to prioritize getting whatever kind of agreement they can from the U.S., with even China struggling to keep partners on side amid the frantic deal-making.
Ottawa’s latest pivot to Asia comes three years after it released its much-vaunted Indo-Pacific Strategy, which called for, among other things, seizing opportunities in the region “to safeguard Canada’s economic security, build our future prosperity and help create good, well-paying jobs.”
Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, then-Trade Minister Mary Ng led multiple “Team Canada” missions to the region.
But efforts to boost trade with the Indo-Pacific region have been hampered by Canada’s poor relationship with China and India, which soured under Mr. Trudeau amid accusations of interference in Canadian politics by both Beijing and New Delhi.
Mr. Trudeau’s successor, Mark Carney, has worked to smooth things over, even inviting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alta., last month, an apparent acknowledgment of former prime minister Stephen Harper’s assessment that Ottawa cannot pick and choose its partners in a world where the rules-based free trade order is being replaced by “something much more akin to survival of the fittest and the triumph of the strongest.”
Repairing relations with Beijing has proved more difficult. In March, China announced a long-awaited retaliation for Canadian tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, slapping heavy duties on imports of Canadian agricultural products. Diplomatic ties were also further bruised by the revelation that China had secretly executed four Canadian nationals convicted of drug offences.
Ms. Anand met with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi at the ASEAN summit on Friday. In a Chinese readout on the meeting, Mr. Wang noted that this year marked the 55th anniversary of China-Canada diplomatic relations and that Premier Li Qiang last month “held a positive and constructive call with Prime Minister Carney.”
However, Mr. Wang also said that there had been “ups and downs in China-Canada relations in recent years,” with clear “rights and wrongs,” adding that “China opposes the unwarranted suppression of Chinese enterprises under the guise of national security.”
Mr. Wang criticized the U.S. for imposing tariffs that he said disrupted global trade and hurt economic growth, especially in small and poor countries and reiterated China’s commitment to free trade.
Global Affairs Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One bright spot for Canada in Asia is the region’s third-largest economy, Japan, which is similarly casting about for new trading partners as a result of Mr. Trump’s tariffs.
Prior to landing in Kuala Lumpur, Ms. Anand stopped in Tokyo, where she met with Chief Cabinet Secretary Hayashi Yoshimasa “to discuss strengthening the long-standing economic and security partnership between Canada and Japan.”
“Japan and Canada will cooperate on critical minerals and natural resources and expand regional trade generally,” Global Affairs said in a statement.
In particular, Ottawa is hoping to boost exports of liquefied natural gas to both Japan and South Korea. The first shipment of LNG from a plant in Kitimat, B.C., bound for East Asia left late last month, according to Shell, which owns a 40-per-cent stake in the operation.
The company forecasts that demand for LNG is set to rise by about 60 per cent by 2040, “largely driven by economic growth in Asia,” and notes that the Canadian plant’s location “connects cost-competitive upstream gas from British Columbia to growing Asian demand.”
With reports from Reuters
Editor’s note: as Trade Minister, Mary Ng oversaw the opening of a new $24-million trade and investment office in Singapore. In fact, Ms. Ng led multiple “Team Canada” missions to the region.