In D.C., Premiers Call China an 'Enemy'
Premiers descend on Washington to combat tariffs with a message on China as IPD assesses provincial trade relationships with both economies.
This week's edition of IPD's Canada-China Brief covers Canadian premiers’ China messaging on their mission to Washington, D.C. and offers a deep dive into the data on provincial economic ties with China and the U.S.
Data Dive
As the provinces weigh Chinese and American economic ties, IPD highlights the numbers that matter.
Dependence on the U.S. differs by province: From coast to coast, provincial economies have achieved varying levels of export diversification between the U.S. and China.
The takeaways:
Over 63% of Canadian exports to the U.S. consist of intermediate inputs.
Alberta, Ontario, and New Brunswick are among the most vulnerable provinces to U.S. tariff action.
Mining products, automotives, and transport goods are most impacted by American trade levies.
British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador are the least export-dependent on the U.S.
Alberta, despite sending only 4% of its exports to China, represents almost a quarter of total Canadian exports to China.
From the Experts
On premiers’ D.C. visit, the ‘China card’ as strategy, and future provincial policies:
Margaret Cornish
Advisor, Institute for Peace & Diplomacy
For Canadian Premiers to play the so-called "anti-China card" in Washington is both naive and shortsighted. It demonstrates lack of attention to our own long-term interests as well as lack of strategic and negotiating sophistication. Canada is now acclimatizing itself to a transforming world order — one in which we are no longer the favoured neighbour of the world hegemon but rather trying to get along with two great powers. It is taking us time to adapt to this change in relative power. President Trump is forcing Canadians to realize we need access to multiple export markets. Given the complementarity of our economies, this certainly includes China which already our number two largest trading partner. There is no requirement to "like" one's trading partners; that is naive. China is quite aware of our predicament as neighbour and ally to the U.S. What they expect is respect and will penalize any country that offers gratuitous offence.
Until 2020, provincial and city governments across Canada were frequent visitors to China promoting trade and investment. This may have diminished in the post-Meng Wanzhou/Two Michaels freeze, but the economic interests remain and will be rekindled as we begin to focus on diversifying exports. The negative response to our initial instinct to throw Mexico under the USMCA bus should be instructive. Self-respect requires we avoid phoney U.S. foreign policy boosterism. Recall our Premiers were met in Washington by mid-level bureaucrats, not elected officials. Their efforts were hardly acknowledged. Mexico's reserve and dignified issue-focussed response in the face of the same Trump onslaught has something to be said for it. The world now has two superpowers. We need to avoid incentivizing China to set our interests aside when we need them.
The White House, and a wide swath of the Senate and House of Representatives, care about safe alternatives to China on critical minerals et cetera. But they don't need Canada to explain it to them. Our task is simply to remind them that Canada is a high-quality, secure source of many critical minerals essential to U.S. hi-tech and defence production. No need to trash China or Mexico.
Anton Malkin
Associate Fellow, Institute for Peace & Diplomacy; Head of Research, China Institute, University of Alberta
The narrative of a unified "Fortress Am-Can" against China seems to resonate minimally within Washington's policy circles. While the United States maintains close security partnerships with its North American neighbors, appeals from Ottawa or Canadian provincial governments for a coordinated trade front against China are unlikely to sway American policymakers. The Trump administration, in particular, has demonstrated a clear inclination to renegotiate not only existing trade agreements but also broader U.S. foreign policy commitments. This predisposition suggests a diminished interest in positioning Canada as a "safe" alternative to China for critical minerals, steel, aluminum, or other commodities. Indeed, the administration's stated preference for domestic sourcing of such materials further underscores this point, indicating a prioritization of self-reliance above reliance on even traditionally close allies.
Thomas Liu
Chief Executive Officer and Global Managing Partner, Policy Nexus
I believe such rhetoric has limited impact on President Trump himself or the broader U.S. government. It is not the fundamental reason behind Trump's tariff measures against Canada. The issue is not that Canada has failed to align itself with the U.S.—on the contrary, Canada has long followed Washington’s lead. In reality, Trump’s strategy is to pressure allies not out of ideological divergence but as a means to reinforce his own leadership and assert dominance. His approach extends beyond trade; it is about exporting his values and governance logic to the world, including to America's closest allies.
Canada should remain steadfast in defending its core principles of rationality, independence, and diversity, and engage in serious discussions with President Trump on shared challenges. Deflecting conflicts onto others does not directly resolve the challenges Canada itself faces. If someone is being bullied, their solution cannot be to pledge loyalty to the aggressor in hopes of redirecting the aggression elsewhere.
In the context of intensifying U.S.-China competition, the actions of Canadian provinces regarding China are driven more by political considerations than purely economic logic. In the coming months, provinces with closer economic ties to the U.S. are likely to impose further restrictions on Chinese enterprises in areas such as government procurement and investment screening. Meanwhile, export-oriented provinces will seek to maintain trade with China while actively exploring alternative markets. However, the complexity of global supply chains and Canada’s own economic interests suggest that provincial governments will proceed cautiously rather than pursuing a full-scale decoupling. The paradox, however, lies in the fact that reducing dependence on a single U.S. market would necessitate greater market diversification, expanding trade and investment into the broader Asia-Pacific region, including China. If provincial policies simultaneously impose restrictions on China, this would contradict the very principle of market diversification. How should Canada resolve this contradiction? Beyond the U.S. and China, which other countries can offer such scale of market opportunities? This is a pressing question that Canada and its provinces will need to address.
Top Story
To Fend Off Tariffs, Premiers Try to Rally White House Against China
Last week, provincial premiers headed south to the U.S. capital in a mission helmed by Ontario’s Doug Ford to lobby American decision-makers to reconsider tariffs on Canada. The pitch that Canada is a necessary bulwark against China was a persistent theme.
‘Our common enemy’ — Doug Ford, chairing the Council of the Federation, led the premier delegation to the U.S. and its key messaging on Beijing:
Speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Ford called China “our common economic enemy” and said “a lot of the world is sitting back and laughing. And I’ll tell you, sitting back and laughing, is China. China’s sitting back and thinking, ‘we couldn’t ask for a better plan than this’.”
Ford praised decoupling as “the most ambitious economic realignment in the past 100 years. [The U.S. is] decoupling from China and its global proxies. Doing so will be no easy task. It will require long-term thinking, it will require dedication, and most of all it will require friends and allies like Canada and Ontario.”
Reiterating his opposition to Mexico-China trade, Ford declared that “together, let's put an end to Chinese transshipments through Mexico into American and Canadian markets. Every member of the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement needs to match or exceed U.S. tariffs on Chinese products.”
“Electric vehicles, batteries and in particular aluminum and steel — all need matching tariffs if they fail to do so they should lose their seat at the table… Canada and the United States and Mexico all need strong robust investment review processes designed to block Chinese investments.”
Ford promises bans — On the campaign trail himself, the Ontario Premier talked tough and promised to prohibit China from provincial grids and market access:
The Ontario Progressive Conservative Party released a statement quoting Ford, who honed it on the message that “Canada and the U.S. need to remain united and focused on the real trade war we’re fighting against China,” adding he would “ban Chinese components from future procurements to keep our grid secure.”
In a provincial ‘Am-Can Growth Plan’ to achieve ‘Fortress Am-Can’, the Ford government recommended action to “prohibit any direct or indirect actions by China or Chinese State-Owned Enterprises to acquire, influence or subvert American or Canadian resources, markets or other strategic assets and property.”
Touting Canadian critical minerals, Quebec Premier François Legault said “it would be wise for the United States to make a deal with us. Some of these minerals are imported from China. I think the United States and North America should be independent from China. So we can work on strategic minerals together.”
Penning an op-ed for The Hill, Legault wrote that “the United States is rightly concerned about China’s near monopoly on strategic critical minerals… Quebec can supply these strategic materials, and help America free itself from China’s grip,” adding that “by attacking Canada, he is picking the wrong target.”
Meanwhile, B.C. Premier David Eby was more circumspect in his remarks, stating that “the last thing we’re considering is further economic integration with the United States right now, and that’s because of the tariff threat… What we’re doing is we’re diversifying markets. We’re looking for other customers.”
Trump justifies annexation — In more recent days, the U.S. President has said that Chinese threats to Canada were sufficient reason to make the country the 51st state:
Trump told the press that “they think we’re going to protect them with our military which is unfair” since it was not a part of the U.S., adding that “you have Russian ships, you have Chinese ships, you have a lot of ships out there, and people are in danger. This is a different world today.”
The White House deputy chief of staff James Blair, one of the administration figures the premier delegation was able to obtain facetime with, affirmed Trump’s proposals by overruling premiers’ account of the meeting and saying that “to be clear, we never agreed that Canada would not be the 51st state.”
Responding to the premiers’ messaging on China in D.C., Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun stated that “China always believes that state-to-state relations should not target any third party, and should contribute to the friendly cooperation between countries.”
What commentators think — Experts have observed divergences of interest and understanding:
Pascale Massot, ex-advisor to the foreign minister, said that “different provinces, especially those more exposed to bilateral trade with China, may not want to take on a trade fight on both fronts simultaneously,” adding that Chinese investment is “at an all-time low. Not sure a lot needs to be done to decrease it even further.”
Carlo Dade and Stewart Beck noted that “critics will say deepening Asian relationships risks our U.S. partnership… Building stronger Asian relationships isn’t about choosing sides; it’s about maintaining our economic sovereignty and ability to make independent decisions in Canada’s national interest.”
Diana Gibson, BC’s economic development minister, stated that “our policy around China is the federal government’s. But our goal is to diversify into the markets that are working for our industry partners, and China is one of those markets.”
Zhou Xiaoming, former Deputy Permanent Representative of China’s Mission to the UN in Geneva, wrote that U.S. demands towards Ottawa are a sign that “Trump expects his Make America Great Again project to be realized at the expense of other countries.”
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Image Credit: Doug Ford