Canada and China agreed on January 15, 2026, to expand cooperation across six economic areas set out in a joint road map, covering agriculture, energy, consumer goods and services, aerospace, advanced manufacturing and tourism, while signing side agreements on pet food, animal health, clean energy and lumber — but they reached no resolution on tariffs.
What was actually agreed on January 15
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to Beijing, his first trip to China and the first by a Canadian prime minister since 2017, produced a set of agreements on January 15, following talks with Chinese Premier Li Qiang. The centrepiece was an economic and trade cooperation road map in which the two countries set out six areas for expanding bilateral ties: agriculture, energy, consumer services and goods, aerospace, advanced manufacturing and tourism.
Alongside the road map, the two sides signed cooperation documents covering energy, forestry and food safety, among other subjects. Analysis of the visit by Canadian trade lawyers likewise describes six initial cooperation agreements covering areas including energy, crime, culture, forestry and food safety, and notes that the strategic partnership did not include a conclusive agreement on trade or bilateral investment. Consensus on direction, in other words, came before any binding market-access deal.
That timing matters. This January 15 explainer covers the agreements and the road map announced that day. It is distinct from the preliminary tariff arrangement on electric vehicles and canola that followed on January 16, after Carney met President Xi Jinping. Readers should not treat the January 15 documents as if they already contained that later deal.
Pet food, animal health and a long-standing irritant
One agreement touches on sanitary oversight of pet food and animal health, areas where Canada has long complained about trade irritants. Since February 2022, Canadian exports of heat-treated dry pet food containing poultry have been halted because of China’s avian influenza trade restrictions. A single case of atypical BSE also led to a suspension of beef exports to China in 2021.
Ottawa has been frustrated by Chinese officials’ limited willingness to engage on those files, which stymied some agricultural exports. Canadian industry groups have for years argued they want to sell more pet food to China, noting that Australian exports have risen as China’s growing middle class adopts more cats and dogs. An agreement to work on animal health and sanitary oversight does not reopen those markets by itself, but it restarts the technical channel through which such bans are normally reviewed and lifted.
Energy, lumber and clean technology
Energy cooperation covers both conventional and clean energy. The agreements recognize Canada as a potential supplier of oil and liquefied natural gas, explore renewable co-operation including offshore wind, and revive dialogue on carbon reduction and grid efficiency. British Columbia’s forestry track, signed with Beijing, aims to promote modern wood construction and mass timber for green buildings in China, framed in part as a response to American tariffs on Canadian lumber.
Global trade language, with caveats
The main economics agreement says both countries support rules-based trade with the World Trade Organization at its core, and both support WTO reforms — even though both Carney and Beijing have described the WTO as “paralyzed.”
Asia Pacific Foundation vice-president Vina Nadjibulla said the phrasing is largely symbolic. “This is signalling to rules-based trade or multilateralism, but with a lot of caveats which both sides understand and that remain unspoken in this document,” she said.
The document also notes China’s continued interest in joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade bloc spanning Canada, Australia, Peru, Japan and Southeast Asia. It restates Canada’s long-held position that economies seeking to join — which include China and Taiwan — must meet high standards on labour rights, environmental protection and intellectual property. “Those principles are worded in such a way that would be very difficult for China to satisfy them,” Nadjibulla said.
The holdout: tariffs
The one big holdout on January 15 was tariffs. Canada’s duties on Chinese electric vehicles, steel and aluminum remained in place, as did China’s retaliatory duties on Canadian agricultural exports such as canola and seafood. The road map set out where the two governments wanted co-operation to grow; it did not settle the measures that were actively taxing each other’s goods.
That is why the January 15 outcome should be read as a framework, not a settlement. Ottawa gained signed channels on pet food, animal health, energy, lumber and clean technology, plus shared language on the WTO. What exporters in the hardest-hit sectors still needed — a change in tariff rates — was not delivered that day, and any assessment of the visit has to keep the two days, and the two different kinds of agreement, separate.
