I’m in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, reporting on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s excursion to Asia.
On Thursday evening, just hours before Mark Carney’s departure for Asia, President Trump created a new headache for the prime minister while also underscoring the need for the trip.
In the latest of his online outbursts, Mr. Trump announced that he had ended all trade talks with Canada. The president had taken offense at a TV ad from the Province of Ontario that was drawn from a 1987 radio address in which President Ronald Reagan made the case that tariffs ultimately harm American workers and the United States economy.
[Read: Trump Says He’s Cutting Off Trade Negotiations With Canada]
[Read: Trump Called a Canadian Ad Fake. It Faithfully Reproduces Reagan’s Words.]
After speaking with Mr. Carney on Friday, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario and the man behind the commercial, said that it would again air in the United States during the first two World Series games this weekend before being retired on Monday.
[Read: New Trump-Canada Spat Spotlights ‘Captain Canada,’ the Ontario Premier]
Standing on a chilly and damp runway before boarding a Royal Canadian Air Force Airbus, Mr. Carney avoided naming either Mr. Trump or Mr. Ford during a brief meeting with the reporters, including me, who were traveling with him. Noting, as he has in the past, that “we can’t control the trade policy of the United States,” Mr. Carney said he was focused on developing new partnerships “including with the economic giant, Asia.”
While the timing of the trip was determined by two meetings with leaders from nations with interests in the Pacific, Mr. Carney’s main job during his visit may require acting as Canada’s chief salesman.
On Wednesday, Mr. Carney spoke to a group of students at the University of Ottawa and some reporters, including me. Repeating what has become a standard line, Mr. Carney told the overflow crowd that Canada’s tight economic integration with the United States was never coming back.
“Our relationship with the United States will never again be the same,” he said.
As an alternative, Mr. Carney promised to double Canada’s exports to places other than the United States within a decade.s.
It is an ambitious target. To achieve it, Canada will have to substantially up its game in Asia.
A poll released this week by the Angus Reid Institute shows that the region is a bit of a mystery for most Canadians. It found that 90 percent of Canadians know little or nothing about Malaysia. For Singapore, the next stop, the figure was 82 percent. Even South Korea, the final country on the tour, was an unknown place for 73 percent of the people surveyed.
Mr. Carney has also been trying to mend Canada’s currently dismal relationship with China, raising hopes of a possible meeting with Xi Jinping, China’s top leader.
Here’s a brief guide to the prime minister’s trip:
Who is meeting?
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is more commonly known as Asean, will be gathering in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, from Oct. 26 to 28 for its 47th leaders’ summit meeting. Its 10 member states, which do not include China, form a free trade bloc and coordinate on security and social issues.
Canada is working on an end-of-year deadline to reach a free-trade agreement with the Asean nations, a negotiation that Mr. Carney has made a priority as he grappled with American tariffs.
Mr. Carney will then join Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation nations at a meeting in Gyeongju, a resort city in southeast South Korea, from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1. While the organization promotes trade within the region, APEC is not a free trade bloc. Canada is among its 21 members, as are China, Russia, the United States, Australia and Mexico. Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, which is not a member, has been invited to attend.
Trump Talk
Just over two weeks ago, Mr. Carney was in Washington to meet Mr. Trump. That session brought a new intensity to negotiations over U.S. tariffs. Before Mr. Trump’s social media post about the Reagan ad, Mr. Carney had suggested that there could be movement on U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum that are as high as 50 percent.
This is the second time that Mr. Trump has halted talks with Canada, so there is a possibility of another restart. But before the latest collapse, Mr. Carney acknowledged that Canada had not found a way to reverse Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Canadian autos and softwood lumber.
Thawing relations
Relations between Canada and China have verged on toxic since 2018 when a top electronics executive from China was arrested in Canada at the request of the United States. China retaliated by imprisoning two Canadians. All three have since been released in what was essentially a prisoner swap.
Adding to the bad feelings are findings by Canada that China has meddled Canadian elections, and tariffs of as high as 100 percent that China has applied on canola oil seeds and other canola products. Those levies were linked to the 100 percent duties that Canada put on imports of Chinese electric vehicles.
Last week, Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, met with Anita Anand, his Canadian counterpart. He called their meeting an important opportunity to “promote a ‘new start’ for China-Canada relations.”
China is nevertheless pushing for an end to the electric vehicle tariffs in exchange for dropping its canola tariff. Such a move would be likely to further inflame trade tensions with Mr. Trump and is stridently opposed by Mr. Ford.
There is an expectation that Mr. Carney and Mr. Xi will meet in Seoul, but nothing has been confirmed.
Trans Canada
This section was compiled by Vjosa Isai, a reporter based in Toronto.
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Ian Austen reports on Canada for The Times. A Windsor, Ontario, native now based in Ottawa, he has reported on the country for two decades. He can be reached at [email protected].
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Ian Austen reports on Canada for The Times. A Windsor, Ontario, native now based in Ottawa, he has reported on the country for two decades. He can be reached at [email protected].
The post Facing Lost Trade With the U.S., Carney Heads to Asia appeared first on New York Times.
