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Current Affairs

Can Mark Carney’s US-China juggling act keep Canada’s ‘primary relationship’ intact?

When China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Canada late last month to consolidate a new economic partnership, Prime Minister Mark Carney was in New…

By Samantha Johnson / June 7, 2026
When China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Canada late last month to consolidate a new economic partnership, Prime Minister Mark Carney was in New York pitching for more than US$1 trillion in investment.

“The timing was almost certainly deliberate,” said Alejandro Reyes, a professor of politics and a senior fellow at the Centre on Contemporary China and the World at the University of Hong Kong. “It signals to Washington that engagement with Beijing does not come at the expense of the primary relationship.”

Carney, who did meet Wang after his return from New York, has been seeking new trade relationships since Donald Trump returned to the White House and repeatedly threatened to quit Nato and make Canada the 51st state of the United States.

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But he has not given up on his outsized neighbour, which he said during the New York visit still accounted for more than 70 per cent of its trade.

“Carney does not see Canada-China and Canada-US relations as trade-offs,” said Jeremy Paltiel, a senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, a US-Canadian think tank. “He predicates relationship with China on China’s importance in the global economy and its importance therefore to Canada pursuing greater autonomy and sovereignty.”

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