Jim Warren is a recovering academic as retired adjunct professor and lecturer in environmental sociology at the University of Regina.
Prime Minister Mark Carney meets with President of China Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Two weeks ago Scott Moe did the right thing. He accompanied Mark Carney to China in support of reducing the 75.8 per cent tariff on raw Canadian canola seed to just 15 per cent.
Canola producers are our friends and neighbours; what’s more, they make a significant contribution to the province’s economy. The $7.9 billion in exports they generate annually accounts for 9 per cent of Saskatchewan’s $90 billion GDP.
By way of comparison, Saskatchewan’s oil producers sold $13 billion worth of oil in 2024-2025, amounting to 14.4% of provincial GDP.
But look out for potash. In 2024, potash revenues were more than double those of canola and crude oil combined. Our potash exports were worth $45.4 billion that year—a whopping 50.4% of GDP.
Those three commodities alone account for 68.8% of Saskatchewan’s GDP. That total omits other major exports—all the other agricultural commodities we export plus uranium, etc. Saskatchewan would have to turn out the lights, roll up the sidewalks and hold a going out of business sale if we didn’t have resource commodities to export.
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So what’s not to like?
Premier Moe’s canola tariff lobbying was part of a larger deal negotiated between Ottawa and China. Our prime minister reduced Canada’s 100 per cent tariff on Chinese EVs down to just 6.1 per cent (with an import limit of 49,000 Chinese EVs annually).
The EV tariff reduction, along with several additional sweeteners that pleased the Chinese, alarmed Canada’s Conservatives who worried we might be getting too involved with Communist China. After all, China is world renowned for its unfair trading practices and interfered in Canadian elections.
China provides huge subsidies to favoured by industries and companies. This allows subsidized firms to offer the products they export at prices below the cost of producing them. Manufacturers in the importing countries cannot compete on price with the subsidized products.
Dumping products at artificially low prices is referred to as predatory pricing—something that is supposed to be illegal under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) administered by the World Trade Organization. China has managed to get away with it. They have also managed to get away with trying to influence Canadian elections.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford went ballistic. He views the EV deal as a threat to Ontario’s troubled auto sector. Stellantis moved a factory from Ontario to the US earlier this year to escape Canada’s EV manufacturing mandates. Some of the automakers who remain in Canada have made investments in EV battery manufacturing and factory redesign to be in compliance with Canada’s EV mandate. The China deal threatens to reduce the value of those investments.
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Obviously, Ford is worried the deal with China will be one irritation too many for some of the car companies, encouraging them to follow Stellantis out of the country.
But wait, it gets worse. Canada’s 100 per cent tariff on Chinese EVs was in part a symbolic effort that matched a 100 per cent EV tariff imposed by the US. The two North American countries wanted to jointly stress their opposition to China’s massive subsidies to its auto industry and protect their own auto sectors. US President Donald Trump was not impressed with Canada’s cozying up to China by abandoning its participation in the joint EV tariff effort. Sometimes Carney’s Canada is the unreliable trading partner.
Get Trump angry and he’s liable to start indiscriminately slapping tariffs on anything the US imports from any country that pisses him off.
Then, just four days after signing the trade deal with China, Mark Carney made his now famous speech at Davos. The speech alleged that the post-WWII World Order had collapsed, largely because under Donald Trump the US had become an unreliable trading partner and a threat to the various military alliances and international institutions, including NATO, that have helped prevent a war between the major powers since 1945.
In Carney’s words there has been an irreparable “rupture” in the old rules-based order which now compels middle powers like Canada and EU member states to come together and build new trading alliances that can stand apart from giant coercive hegemons like the US, China and Russia. To skeptics, it seems odd that Carney’s first major foray into the new world order involved a deal with China—one of the powerful hegemons he claims middle powers should try to avoid.
One of the outcomes emanating from the recent headlines generated by our prime minister was a Donald Trump mega-tantrum this past week. He claimed on Truth Social that he is going to impose a 100 per cent tariff on all Canadian imports into the US. Trump added that he was rescinding his invitation to Carney to join his new global ‘Board of Peace’. That message crossed electronic paths with a message from Carney indicating he was declining the invitation.
Odds are this latest eruption, like many previous Trump tantrums, will fail to produce any significant real-world effects. But you never know with Trump.
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The new tariff threat comes in conjunction with other geopolitical events that could prove economically hazardous for Canada and Saskatchewan. For instance, the US has rescinded its tariffs on imports of potash from Belarus. Prior to the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Belarus vied with Saskatchewan and Russia for the title of the world’s largest potash producer. The US and its NATO allies had imposed tariffs on trade with Belarus because it allowed Russia to use its territory as a staging area for its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Farmers in many parts of the US require potash fertilizer for successful crop production. Until now, the removal of the tariffs on Belarusian potash weren’t much of a threat. The cost of transporting potash by rail and ship over the vast distances separating Belarus from the US makes it uncompetitive with the Canadian product. That is unless Belarus is prepared to sell at a huge discount. Nevertheless, should Trump choose to place large tariffs on Canadian potash, it’s possible it could be displaced in the US market by Belarusian product. Were that to become a long-term arrangement Saskatchewan’s potash miners would need to look for new customers.
But what do I know? We have plenty of mining company officials in the province who are paid to prepare for market risks. They just aren’t publicizing any serious concerns that they might have. If the prices for shares in potash mining companies don’t appear affected, maybe we can relax.
We have not had to worry about US tariffs on Canadian oil since it became an export commodity. The US has been happy to buy Western Canadian oil, albeit at a discount (lately, around 20 per cent). However, Trump’s adventures in Venezuela could potentially reduce the volume of oil the US purchases from Canada which is currently around 4.5 million barrels per day.
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Under its existing, famously bad, oil industry management Venezuela has still managed to produce approximately one million barrels per day. China has been financing oil field infrastructure maintenance and replacement in Venezuela since around 2020.
Canada’s oil producers can take some comfort in the fact that thus far the US has said it will only require Venezuela to provide American oil companies with 30 to 50 million barrels annually. That amounts to 8.2 per cent-14 per cent of current production. That level of US purchases would clearly not be an existential threat to Canadian producers.
But what are the chances that could change? Could the Trump administration demand a far higher percentage of Venezuela’s production. What if the US were to demand everything Venezuela produces, displacing a corresponding level of Canadian imports? Should that happen it could amount to a 22.7 per cent reduction in the 4.4 million barrels of crude Canada exports to the US every year.
Don’t ask me what’s likely to happen. But if Carney keeps poking Trump in the eye chances are we’ll find out.
The foregoing threats to exports can’t be blamed on Scott Moe, he played only a supporting role in discussions with China.
It was Mark Carney’s contribution to the Chinese trade deal and his mouthing off at Davos that caused the problems. Let’s hope Canada’s auto industry, potash exports and oil exports don’t become collateral damage because of Carney’s misguided trade and foreign policy.
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