Editorial | Expanding friendships

This week, days after he was sworn in, Mark Carney, Canada’s new prime minister, made his first trip abroad for talks with “reliable allies”.

In the past, this might have been a quick hop across their shared border to the United States for a chat with the US president. Which would be in order. After all, not only do the two countries share a near 9,000-kilometre border, in 2023 their bilateral trade reached US$773 billion. Canada exported US$419 billion to, and imported US$354 billion from, the USA.

Instead, Mr Carney flew across the Atlantic for discussions with French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

“(It) is more important than ever for Canada to strengthen its ties with reliable allies like France,” Mr Carney remarked ahead of his meeting with President Macron.

There was a symbolism in the countries Mr Carney chose for his first visit. Britain, like Canada, is a member of the Commonwealth. Canada inherited a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy from the United Kingdom (UK). Both countries share Britain’s King Charles as their head of state.

In terms of the Franco-Canadian connection, Canada was a French colony for a century and a half, until the territory was ceded to Britain in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris, which halted the Seven Years’ War between European powers.

Although English is dominant, Canada is officially a bilingual country, with French being the main language in the province of Quebec. Indeed, in Paris, Mr Carney described Canada as “the most European of non-European countries”.

URGENT ASSESSMENT

Symbolism aside, there are worthwhile lessons for Jamaica and its partners in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to learn from Mr Carney’s whistle-stop visit to the two European capitals: about the need to expand and strengthen their global relations. Existing ones are not always reliable.

In that regard, in the Americas, Jamaica and CARICOM should first begin to pay greater attention to, and seek to strengthen, their long-standing relationship with Canada. This, however, should also be part of an urgent assessment by the Community of its global relation as it seeks to create a cushion for any potential fallout from the actions of other friends. Which was precisely what Mr Carney was doing with his swing across the Atlantic.

Indeed, Canada’s relationship with its close North American neighbour has grown fraught since Donald Trump’s second advent as president of the United States.

The two countries, plus Mexico, were part of the US, Mexico and Canada (USMCA) trade agreement, which in 2023 accounted for more than US$1.6 trillion in trade, or around five per cent of global trade. Mr Trump has essentially torn up the USMCA, imposing a 25 per cent across-the-board tariff on the partner countries. Canada has retaliated with tariffs of its own. The US move threatens to throw Canada’s economy into recession.

Further, Mr Trump has been ridiculing Canada, saying it should become America’s 51st state. He referred to Canada’s former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Governor Trudeau”.

Other areas of political alignment between the United States, including support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, have gone awry.

It is unlikely that there will be any permanent fracture between Canada and its more powerful neighbour to the south. Their economies are seriously intertwined and would be difficult to unravel.

However, some Canadian commentators have floated the idea of Canada joining the EU, with which it has a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement that allows for tariff-free trade in most goods and services. In 2023, Canada-EU visible trade was €76.4 billion, a small fraction of the volume of that between Canada and the US. Trade in services was €44.4 billion. In both instances, the balance is in favour of the EU.

However, proponents see opportunities for growth and, critically, the possibility of Canada spreading its political and economic risks.

COMMON GROUND

That is the same context in which Canada is seeking to deepen its relations with the UK, including reviving negotiations of a full-fledged free-trade agreement, negotiations on which broke down last year. In 2023, the Canadians imported £16.5 billion worth of British goods and exported £9.8 billion.

The important lesson is how the Caribbean might respond to the provocative behaviour of a powerful neighbour. The region, for example, faces threats of sanctions for using Cuba’s medical support services, as well as the possibility of Washington blacklisting some CARICOM countries over their citizenship-by-investment schemes. The region could face collateral damage from some of Mr Trump’s trade actions.

CARICOM, a group of small, mostly island states, is not an economically powerful bloc. But it is 14 countries, whose collective voice counts for something. Additionally, around three-quarter of a million people (250,000 of them Jamaicans) of Caribbean descent live in Canada, whose cultural influence is beyond their numbers.

Canada, though, is merely one example not only of the possibility, but of the imperative, of Jamaica and CARICOM expanding their relations with countries and regions with which they can find common ground.

India, an emerging global power with a shared colonial history and political system, is among the countries to which the region should look in these perilous times. The planned African Union (AU)-CARICOM Summit in September presents another opportunity for the region to widen that umbrella of mutual support.