- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Prime Minister Mark Carney says he has reached a deal with China to allow tens of thousands of Chinese electric vehicles into the country in exchange for lower canola duties.
He billed his first such trade deal since taking office as a preliminary one that would boost the economy.
Carney says Ottawa expects Beijing to drop canola seed duties to 15 per cent by March.
Canadian canola meal, lobsters, crabs and peas will no longer be subject to Chinese tariffs from March to at least the end of the year.
In return, Canada will allow up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the Canadian market at a 6.1 per cent tariff rate.
The pact comes just hours after Carney met with President Xi Jinping on a trip to Beijing, ending a multi-year trade dispute that began when the last Liberal government levied EV tariffs to protect Canada’s auto sector.
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I can’t say I’m too surprised. I’m not involved in the auto sector in anyway, but the media I’ve seen about it with respect to Canadian manufacturing has been all negative - US companies or US owned companies pulling their manufacturing out of Canada despite deals made (looking at you Stellantis). If our auto sector is diminishing/pulling out, what do we have to protect?
That being said, I’d like to see more manufacturing jobs here as part of that deal, but I’m entirely uninformed on how that would work or what it would look like.
I’m in one of the big cities affected by this in Ontario. I’ve got mixed feelings, but I think this may end up being for the better. With all the American manufacturers backsliding on their EV transitions and keeping their prices sky-high for whatever they do have—all while refusing to stand up to Trump in any meaningful way—now, they’ll have to compete or risk losing the market entirely. I still think we should do more and accept vehicle standards from other countries in our market, not just the American ones. This should lower vehicle costs and, in turn, insurance rates for affordable vehicles. It should also make it more economical to export products directly to China, rather than the current convoluted process of selling to intermediary countries that add minimal processing before re-exporting to China at a higher cost.
Canada will allow up to 49,000 Chinese
In case people want to know want to know what the numbers means. There was 202k battery EV’s registered in 2024 and 82k through 3 reported quarters in 2025.
Imagine this just gets the ball rolling and there will be a more substantial deal before we hit that number. As of now I don’t like the lack of progress security(this extends outside of EV’s or ones from China) and how we didn’t leverage this into any manufacturing deals.
StatCan Source (first time I’ve seen them use PoweBI):
They won’t build any assembly here before there is any demand.
There’s been a lot of noise the last few years about there being big demand for these EV’s so we’ll see how true this is. I do have a inclination they’ll do rather well even with the economy and low gas prices.
I hope so. My province has practically shut down the EV and solar panel incentives and as you say the incoming belt tightening on the economy make this look like it’s getting setup to fail.
An EV for $25-30k? Sign me up.
Buy used, they lose 50%+ of their value in 3 years.
Don’t underestimate their desire to build soft power.
BYD assembles trucks in PQ.
Great to see the real numbers, thank you. I agree with the sentiment about manufacturing. If it were me, I would tie expanded levels to local manufacturing, with more favorable rates for non-luxury vehicles.
It’s good for increasing overall EVs by increasing charging infrastructure. Will help other EV sales.
It’s 49,000 cars out of almost 2M new car sales a year in Canada, in a market where EV sales barely get above 8%, and for that we restored a $5B canola industry.
And of course, Doug Ford whines while doing his usual fuck all.
Overall this is a good move. However, it will affect manufacturing in Canada. This means North American car manufacturers will simply have to adapt and innovate. Competition is always better than the alternative. For me personally, Honda & Toyota will be my first choice to support our manufacturing base. 🇨🇦💪
Trump can keep his US cars. We don’t need them!
Agreed, Canada can even look into battery manufacturing and clean every production. This would include wind, solar, hydro electric, and (with some reluctance on my part) modular nuclear reactors, which Canada has plenty of knowledge in manufacturing.
If we shifted to battery manufacturing we can supply replacement batteries for imported cars, or even producing the batteries for said cars being imported directly.
This is a promising start to a reset in the relationship. Let’s see where it goes from here and how it develops. This comes just a couple of months after the US’s NSS that claimed dominance over trade in the Americas, so it’s an important move by Carney. The guard rails Carney discussed seem to be around critical areas that the US would take issue with, like minerals, energy, and AI, but better diplomatic relations between Canada and China along with Canadians getting more exposure to high-quality Chinese vehicles should open more space for the relationship to evolve positively.
I saw this in my feed this morning.
Who the fuck cares whether the orange Nobel participation medal claiming pedofascist approves or not? The US wasn’t involved in this. The US doesn’t get a say in this.
North American auto makers capitulated to the oil oligarchs and MAGA ideologues and stopped producing EVs so Canada might as well have access to cheaper Chinese EVs instead.
And, our canola farmers get to sell their products in to China.
Ontario premier went on to say the deal risks “closing the door on Canadian automakers to the American market”
Doing nothing risks closing US market. This is leverage to get balanced auto trade between US and Canada, and charge individual manufacturers fees/tariffs based on imbalance. Demand that manufacturers pay more for Canadian access, with payment in local production. Can be part of new CUSMA/USMCA to permit US to get same balanced trade payments, if Canada were to export more than we import.
Doug Ford has been asleep at the wheel, drunk at the cottage, and completely fumbled the car industry in S. Ontario. The Ontario government should really limit the power, speed, and acceleration of cars. In S. Ontario we’ve reached the limits of congestion, it’s just sprawl and traffic.
By severally limiting the speed etc. of cars, though taxes, the government would have saved the Ontario auto industry. Focus would have then shifted to making everything lower price, and that is all that matters globally in the car market.
Instead we get stupid cars like the Dodge Charge, that only a small minority of people want. Power you can’t use, and a high price tag.
If the provincial government told people, no more stupidity, we are actively capping engine size through taxes we’d have a better and stronger car manufacturing sector in Ontario.
Name one industry in Ontario Doug has not fumbled.
He spends most of his time away for Queens Park, drinking at the cottage…and he expects the auto-industry to somehow deal with all the complex international issues itself. No vision, no ability.
EV tariff could have been 25% and they’d sell all 49k quota with more revenue for Canada. There will need to be an investment in service centers and charging. Low tariff may end up with the most expensive Chinese models (ferrari type competition) imported.
