{"id":620180,"date":"2026-04-22T03:09:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/620180\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T03:09:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:09:19","slug":"china-is-not-a-solution-to-canadas-problems-with-the-u-s-kovrig-says-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/620180\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018China is not a solution\u2019 to Canada\u2019s problems with the U.S., Kovrig says – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig<\/a> is sounding the alarm about Canada seeking deeper trade ties with China<\/a> in the face of growing tensions and uncertainty with the U.S., warning the pivot carries significant risks to Canada\u2019s economic security.<\/p>\n

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Speaking Tuesday at the Future of Business Summit in Ottawa, Kovrig \u2014 a longtime China analyst who was arbitrarily detained by Beijing for more than 1,000 days after Canada detained Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou \u2014 said Ottawa\u2019s new China strategy is a \u201crisky play\u201d that will not be viewed kindly by Washington and could threaten trade talks.<\/p>\n

He pointed to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick\u2019s criticism last week<\/a> of Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s deal with China, announced early this year, which included importing a limited number of Chinese electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe basic problem is that China is not a solution to most of our problems with the U.S.,\u201d Kovrig said at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce-hosted event.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDoing deals with China is perceived in the United States as Canada being an unreliable ally, right? We may see it as trying to have a China card that we can play \u2014 you know, \u2018Look, I got options over here, I can go to my friends in Beijing.\u2019 That\u2019s not going to go well in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Kovrig noted the U.S. still remains Canada\u2019s largest trading partner, representing 75 per cent of Canadian exports. China, by contrast, represents about four per cent of exports.<\/p>\n

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The deal with China aims to boost Canadian exports by 50 per cent by 2030.<\/p>\n

Kovrig said a key difference between the two countries is that China is currently \u201cin selling mode, not in buying mode,\u201d and is seeking to make international markets reliant on its cheaper exports.<\/p>\n

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While Canada has only committed to buying up to 49,000 Chinese EVs, Kovrig said Beijing may seek to increase that quota using economic and diplomatic pressure points like it has in the past.<\/p>\n

He warned Ottawa not to be driven by \u201cshort-term considerations\u201d like consumer demand for less expensive electric vehicles that could lead to \u201cthe long-term strategic implications that path dependence can put us on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re living in a small town and you have just a local Main Street with a hardware store and so on, sure, wouldn\u2019t it be nice to have a Walmart move in and offer you all kinds of cheaper homewares and stuff?\u201d Kovrig said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s going to be great until \u2026 they come in with super low prices and bankrupt all your local shops, and then Main Street looks like a dead zone and all that\u2019s left is Walmart, and then there\u2019s no competition and they can ratchet up the prices. Chinese makers will be able to do the same thing, and it will come with the cost of geopolitical leverage that the state can weaponize.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kovrig said the export strategy mirrors how China has already made Canadian sectors like canola, pork and seafood \u201cexcessively\u201d dependent on the Chinese marketplace, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf China cuts off that trade, the people in those sectors face an economic catastrophe and come running to Ottawa and are effectively trying to lobby our government to do what the Chinese Communist Party wants it to do,\u201d Kovrig said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s a strategic vulnerability for the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Canada\u2019s deal with China included reducing tariffs on Canadian canola seed to 15 per cent and eliminating \u201canti-discrimination\u201d tariffs on canola meal, lobsters, peas and crabs, while increasing imports of other Canadian agricultural goods.<\/p>\n

Kovrig said he doesn\u2019t want to see Canada cut off trade or engagement with China entirely \u2014 \u201cit\u2019s not North Korea,\u201d he quipped \u2014 but that any agreement needs to be \u201ctightly controlled and restricted, and potentially reversible if we find that it\u2019s being abused.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does mean that we need to think carefully and strategically about how we trade or invest with it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kovrig gave similar warnings in testimony last week to the House of Commons committee on science and research, which is studying the potential implications of Ottawa\u2019s Chinese EV deal.<\/p>\n

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Several other witnesses at the committee last week and Monday echoed Kovrig, saying the deal risks negotiations seeking to renew the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on free trade.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Liberal government has downplayed concerns about the deal and the overall efforts to normalize relations with China.<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne said earlier this month after travelling to Beijing to meet with Chinese counterparts that Canada wants to resolve trade irritants between the two countries in order to expand the trading relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur trading relationship is around $120 billion. If you look at the size of the Canadian economy and the size of the Chinese economy, it should be much higher than that,\u201d Champagne said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will need to continue to push to remove these\u00a0trade\u00a0irritants so that the broader vision of increasing the\u00a0trade\u00a0between our two countries is accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014With files from The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig is sounding the alarm about Canada seeking deeper trade ties with China in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,95,232870,714,3275],"class_list":{"0":"post-620180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-michael-kovrig","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}