BEIJING: Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed on a raft of measures from trade to tourism on Friday at the first meeting between the countries’ leaders in Beijing in eight years.

The Canadian premier hailed a “landmark deal” under a “new strategic partnership” with China, turning the page on years of diplomatic spats, retaliatory arrests of each other’s citizens and tariff disputes.

Carney has sought to reduce his country’s reliance on the United States, its key economic partner and traditional ally, as President Donald Trump has aggressively raised tariffs on Canadian products.

“Canada and China have reached a preliminary but landmark trade agreement to remove trade barriers and reduce tariffs,” Carney told a news conference after meeting with Xi.

Under the deal, China — which used to be Canada’s largest market for canola seed — is expected to reduce tariffs on canola products by March 1 to around 15 per cent, down from the current 84pc.

China will also allow Canadian visitors to enter the country visa-free.

In turn, Canada will import 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) under new, preferential tariffs of 6.1pc.

“This is a return to the levels that existed prior to recent trade frictions,” Carney said of the EV deal.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the Canadian government’s decision to allow up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles at a low tariff rate is “problematic” and said Canada may come to regret the decision. “I think it’s problematic for Canada,” Greer told CNBC on Thursday.

Welcoming Carney in the Great Hall of the People, Xi said China-Canada relations reached a turning point at their last meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit in October. “It can be said that our meeting last year opened a new chapter in turning China-Canada relations toward improvement,” Xi told the Canadian leader.

“The healthy and stable development of China-Canada relations serves the common interests of our two countries,” he said, adding he was “glad” to see discussions over the last few months to restore cooperation.

Ties between the two nations withered in 2018 over Canada’s arrest of the daughter of Huawei’s founder on a US warrant, and China’s retaliatory detention of two Canadians on espionage charges.

The two countries imposed tariffs on each other’s exports in the years that ensued, with China also accused of interfering in Canada’s elections.

But Carney has sought a pivot, and Beijing has also said it is willing to get relations back on “the right track”.

Canada, traditionally a staunch US ally, has been hit especially hard by Trump’s steep tariffs on steel, aluminium, vehicles and lumber.

Washington’s moves have prompted Canada to seek business elsewhere.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2026