Donald Trump (and others) have correctly identified the Arctic as an increasingly important area of strategic competition between the U.S., China and Russia.
Two seconds after the moment that it evolved from joke/meme to something more serious — and more absurd — Trump’s musings about Canada becoming the 51st state turned toxic, something made worse by his tariff policy, the own goal that keeps being scored.
About 40 percent of Canada is beyond the Arctic Circle or fairly close to it. Its territorial claims in the High North stretch to the North Pole. For obvious reasons, a successful U.S. strategy in the area needs a supportive Canada, something that it has enjoyed up until now.
But now?
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has been in Beijing, the first visit there by a Canadian prime minister since 2017. As a leftist authoritarian technocrat with a fixation on the climate, Carney would have felt at home. A statement released today from Carney’s office contains the following:
In a more divided and uncertain world, Canada is building a stronger, more independent, and more resilient economy. To that end, Canada’s new government is working with urgency and determination to diversify our trade partnerships and catalyse massive new levels of investment. As the world’s second-largest economy, China presents enormous opportunities for Canada in this mission. . . .
Central to this new [“strategic”] partnership is an agreement to collaborate in energy, clean technology, and climate competitiveness. Canada and China are both energy superpowers focused on expanding two-way energy cooperation – reducing emissions and scaling up investments in batteries, solar, wind, and energy storage. While in Beijing, the Prime Minister met business leaders in energy and clean technology to identify and accelerate Chinese investment opportunities in Canada. [Emphasis added.]
The reference to China as an “energy superpower” is a reference not to its coal, but to the “clean” technologies to which it has already gotten Europe addicted.
Canada will be cutting its tariff on imports of up to 49,000 Chinese EVs to 6.1 percent, but this is only a first stage:
It is expected that within three years, this agreement will drive considerable new Chinese joint-venture investment in Canada with trusted partners to protect and create new auto manufacturing careers for Canadian workers, and ensure a robust build-out of Canada’s EV supply chain. With this agreement, it is also anticipated that, in five years, more than 50% of these vehicles will be affordable EVs with an import price of less than $35,000, creating new lower-cost options for Canadian consumers.
Translation: U.S. tariffs are costing Canadian autoworkers their jobs, so here are their replacements (whether that is realistic is a different matter). And while we are on that topic, exports of American-made cars to Canada (the largest foreign market for U.S.-made cars) have fallen sharply, with Mexican and South Korean exports filling the gap.
Just 36% of passenger vehicles imported to Canada were manufactured in the US during the first 10 months of 2025. That compares with an average of 49% in the 10 years before that, according to Statistics Canada imports data.
But back to Carney’s statement. China will be cutting tariffs on certain Canadian agricultural exports.
And:
Canada and China are both strong advocates of multilateralism. As a key pillar of this partnership, we will deepen our engagement on improved global governance. We will collaborate closely in key areas of shared interest, including climate competitiveness and financial and macroeconomic stability.
If Carney believes that China has any interest in “improved global governance” other than as a device to advance Beijing’s interests, he must be remarkably naïve. He’s not that, meaning that this wording is a warning to the U.S. about Ottawa’s new course, and a not so veiled threat that it might go further. This is not, however, to argue that the U.S. should itself become more involved in “global governance” which has degenerated — as the Trump administration is clearly well aware — into an opaque, NGO-scarred “legislature.”
And just in case all this is not message enough, Carney is quoted in the New York Times as saying that China become a more “predictable” partner to deal with than the United States and that “you see results coming from that.”
The most predictable thing about “partnership” with China is that in the end, it tends not to work out, but Carney’s comments are an obvious reflection of unhappiness with the administration’s erratic and unfriendly trade policy. And not just that.
The New York Times:
Wu Xinbo, the dean at the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said: “I think China not only views Canada as an important economic partner, but also as a useful diplomatic counterweight in dealing with the United States.”
And there we are.
The president needs to rebuild some bridges with Canada as well as with Denmark and Greenland. Strategery is what it is.