COMMENTARY: Trump promises Beijing relief on $30 billion, and Canada stays at 50%

Two baskets of goods

What Xi takes home to Beijing

Xi Jinping returned to Beijing on September 26. With a trade truce extended by two months. And a promise of tariff relief on $30 billion worth of goods.

Xi goes home with a truce. Xi goes home with a promise of relief. Xi goes home with an order for American coal. He goes home with a crisis channel on artificial intelligence. And with two more meetings before Christmas.

That is the first basket. It left by plane.

What Canada keeps

The second basket stayed north of the border.

It holds 50% tariffs on part of Canada’s goods since August 22. Import bans that take effect on Tuesday. A 10% tariff on most of our goods.

Somewhere in a plant in Ontario or Quebec, someone saw the images of the red carpet in Washington. Then checked the schedule for the next shift. If there is one.

Two baskets. The same week.

A basket for the rival, a bill for the neighbour.

Thirty billion each way

The White House fact sheet

The White House puts it in writing in its fact sheet of September 25. The Sino-American trade council agreed on recommendations for more favourable tariff treatment of $30 billion in non-sensitive goods. In each direction.

On the American export side: farm products, fish and seafood, lumber and wood products, cosmetics, medical devices.

On the import side: small appliances, toys, holiday decorations, children’s car seats.

Toys. Decorations. Car seats.

That trade council was created at the Beijing summit in May 2026. It has been operating since this week, according to the White House.

A promise, not a decree

These are recommendations. The Chinese statement speaks of continuing work on the commitment to reduce those tariffs, the Associated Press reports.

A promise, then. Not yet a rate.

A promise is worth something. Especially when the other party gets none.

A working group on market access for farm products in China is also being launched, according to the White House.

But the promise goes to the rival Washington had been trying to isolate for eighteen months, according to the Globe and Mail. And it is denied, for now, to the neighbour.

Thirty billion promised to the rival, no promise for the neighbour.

The Busan truce, extended

Until January

The truce dates from Busan, in October 2025, Deutsche Welle recalls. Beijing suspended its controls on rare earths. Washington cut part of its tariffs.

It was due to expire on November 10. According to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, it will stay in force until January.

Two more months, the Associated Press confirms.

Before the summit, Beijing wanted a truce lasting until the end of Trump’s term, Policy wrote. Washington preferred something shorter. It will be two months, for now.

The rival gets the truce

The rival gets the truce, the ally the bill.

I stand with the Canadian workers paying these 50% tariffs. Against Donald Trump’s trade policy, which extends the truce with Beijing and promises relief on $30 billion of trade while its neighbour stays taxed. Because in the same week, the rival got what the ally does not: time, and a gesture.

This is not an impression. It is a list.

Two months is short. For an exporter taxed at 50%, it is long.

Two months of respite for Beijing, none for Ottawa.

Coal, AI and soldiers

Ten million tons

China will import at least 10 million metric tons of American coal in 2027, then again in 2028, according to the White House.

Coal means American jobs. I do not hold it against Trump.

The two countries also created an investment council. They are continuing work on rare earths, with the aim of bringing deliveries back to appropriate levels.

A channel for artificial intelligence

A dialogue on superintelligence is launched. The next exchange will take place by November. A bilateral channel will handle incidents, the White House writes.

Beijing announces a memorandum of understanding on crisis communications between the two militaries, the Associated Press reports. No major breakthrough, the agency adds. Working mechanisms, mostly.

Trump planned to greet Xi himself at Andrews base, a rare honour, Policy wrote on September 20. The last exception dated back to Barack Obama welcoming Pope Francis, in 2015.

Trump called the summit a meeting of friendship, strength and success, according to Deutsche Welle.

Coal sold. Channels opened. Soldiers talking to each other.

Xi left on Saturday, according to the Xinhua news agency, cited by the Associated Press.

Friendship, strength, success. Three words for the rival. None for the neighbour, that week.

The rival leaves with channels, the neighbour with tariff annexes.

Twenty-seven billion at 50%

The northern basket

Here is the second basket, item by item.

Since August 22, a 50% tariff has hit $27.6 billion worth of Canadian goods, the Department of Finance wrote on August 25.

The Congressional Research Service takes inventory as of September 15. There is 10% on most Canadian goods. There is 50% on steel, aluminum and copper. There is 25% on vehicles and parts, with a partial exemption for what complies with CUSMA. And tariffs on softwood lumber and wood products.

Ten. Twenty-five. Fifty.

That is a lot of percentages for a neighbour.

In 2025, about 15% of American imports from Canada paid duties, some $56 billion, according to the same report. Most goods still entered duty-free, probably thanks to CUSMA, the report specifies.

Tuesday, the bans

Since September 15, most of the 50% tariffs are stacked on top of those imposed in the name of national security. And on September 29, import bans take effect, the same document specifies.

In 2025, duties collected on Canadian imports reached about US$10 billion, up from US$0.4 billion in 2024, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Twenty-five times more in one year. For an ally.

The northern basket gets heavier every month.

The neighbour who heats the house

Sixty-four percent of the oil

Who is this taxed neighbour?

Canada is the largest energy supplier to the United States, the Congressional Research Service writes. Crude oil. Natural gas. Electricity.

In 2025, it supplied 64% of the crude oil imported by the United States, up from 41% in 2015.

It was also the second-largest trading partner of the United States, goods and services combined, according to the same report. The United States remains the largest foreign investor in Canada, at $488 billion.

Seventy-two percent of exports

In 2025, Canada sent 72% of its goods exports to the United States, according to Statistics Canada data cited by the report.

The rival gets relief on its toys. The rival gets a truce. The neighbour gets a ban on its whisky.

The rival sells decorations. The neighbour heats the houses and keeps the trucks rolling.

The neighbour supplies. The neighbour pays. The rival collects.

The one who heats the house pays the bill.

Beijing retaliated too

Washington’s argument

Here is the White House’s strongest argument. It deserves to be heard in full.

Canada retaliated. On September 8, Ottawa imposed its countertariffs on American goods. Beijing, for its part, made gestures: coal, controls on two fentanyl precursors, arrests, according to the White House fact sheet.

Reward whoever cooperates. Punish whoever retaliates. That is the stated logic.

Last year’s rare earths

And yet Beijing retaliated harder than Canada.

China imposed export controls on rare earths last year in response to American tariffs, the Associated Press recalls. Deliveries were cut off to the United States and other countries.

Beijing has also taxed American liquefied natural gas at 15% since February 2025, Policy wrote. Washington wants it lowered.

Retaliate with rare earths, and you get a truce. Retaliate with countertariffs, and you get a ban.

So retaliation does not tell the rival from the ally. Leverage does.

Leverage counts. Loyalty does not.

And yet Canada is a major source of critical minerals for the United States, the Congressional Research Service notes. It has not turned them into a weapon.

Beijing had rare earths. Ottawa had only its word.

Copying Washington against Beijing

Deals that demand alignment

The Globe and Mail spells it out on September 27. Washington has signed some twenty deals in a year. Several require the partner to replicate American restrictions against a third country, without naming it. Experts know which one.

Ottawa was apparently heading toward a deal of that kind in August, before Mark Carney walked away from the table, according to the paper.

The White House dates the breakdown to August 21. The 50% tariffs fell the next day.

For Emily Kilcrease, a former American trade official, there is no carrot anymore. “It’s just a stick,” she says.

A foot, a hand

Wolfgang Alschner, a professor at the University of Ottawa, sums up the Trump administration for the Globe: it is “shooting you in the foot on one side” while reaching out with a handshake on the other.

The ally is asked to line up against Beijing. The ally is asked to replicate American restrictions. Then Beijing is promised relief on $30 billion.

The paper also notes that Trump has at times offered Beijing concessions, such as easing controls on semiconductors.

A foot. A hand. A single neighbour.

Who in Washington explains this consistency to an assembly worker in Windsor?

Lining up against Beijing, while Washington opens the door to it.

What Trump got right

Two right calls

I have to write what bothers my own camp.

A channel for artificial intelligence incidents, and work on crisis communications between militaries, reduce the risk of an accident between two nuclear powers. That is a right call.

Trump also refuses to share America’s lead in artificial intelligence. The United States will not slow down, he said, according to the Associated Press. Against Beijing, that is a second right call.

I call them right because they are. They are real. They are dated. They relieve no one in Windsor.

We sell to Beijing too

And Canada has no lesson in purity to give. In January, Ottawa concluded its own deal with Beijing.

Canadian exports to China jumped 30.1% in the first half of 2026, to a record $21.74 billion, mostly thanks to energy, Vina Nadjibulla writes in Policy on September 20.

That is true, and it does not change this: Ottawa does not ask Washington to align with its China policy. Washington demands it of its partners.

Two right calls against Beijing, and a neighbour left out of the math.

The ally’s week

12:01 a.m. on Tuesday

While Xi was visiting the National Archives, Canada was counting the days until Tuesday.

At 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, according to the White House proclamations, import bans target Canadian alcohol, whey, molasses and motorcycles.

No truce. No joint council. No crisis channel.

The countdown does not stop for a state visit. Tuesday is coming. Nothing delays it.

The night shift

In a plant that exports, the week is measured differently. An order that does not come. A night shift that gets cut. A lunch box closed early.

The sound of a line running at half speed does not make the evening news.

I admit it: that week, I was ashamed to have to compare our fate with Beijing’s. Allies should never have to do that math.

An ally taxed. A rival received.

The rival’s week had a carpet, the ally’s a countdown.

Lobster and lumber

A reprieve that expires

There is worse than the comparison. There is the competition.

China’s relief on Canadian canola meal, peas, lobster and crab expires at the end of the year, Policy recalls.

Yet the American list of September 25 targets fish and seafood, lumber and wood products among exports to China.

Two sellers, one buyer

Canadian lobster could therefore run into better-treated American seafood on the Chinese market.

Canadian lumber, already taxed on entering the United States, could meet a relieved American competitor in Beijing.

One market. Two sellers. Only one favoured.

The lobster did not vote. Neither did the lumber.

Mark Carney is due back in China in November, for the APEC summit in Shenzhen, Policy writes. He will negotiate there after Washington.

The neighbour taxed by one, undercut at the other.

Shenzhen, then Doral

Two more meetings

Trump and Xi are due to meet twice more before the end of the year, Deutsche Welle reports. At APEC in Shenzhen in November. At the December G20, set for Trump’s golf club at Doral, near Miami.

Two more meetings. Two chances to extend.

The truce runs until January. The next one is already being prepared.

Shenzhen in November. Doral in December. January for the truce.

The neighbour’s calendar

For Canada, the trade relationship with Washington remains on hold, Policy wrote before the summit.

What Trump and Xi decide, the magazine added, will shape the framework for Canada’s negotiations with Beijing this fall.

Two calendars. Only one is full. The neighbour waits for a call.

The rival has an agenda, the neighbour a waiting room.

Europe does the same math

A billion a day

Canada is not alone in doing this math.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called an EU trade deficit with China of €1 billion a day unsustainable, Policy reports. Brussels is giving its dialogue with Beijing until October to produce progress.

A Canada–European Union summit is planned for late October. Ottawa and Brussels should compare their approaches there on overcapacity, critical minerals and investment screening, Vina Nadjibulla recommends.

Brussels counts. Ottawa counts. Washington promises.

Industrial overcapacity, economic coercion, Chinese dominance of critical mineral refining: those concerns remain for Canada, Vina Nadjibulla writes.

Collective resilience

On September 17, before the European Parliament, Mark Carney spoke of sovereignty through access to capabilities: energy, defence, artificial intelligence, critical minerals. The goal, he said, is not self-sufficiency but collective resilience.

If Washington treats the rival better than the ally, the ally will go looking for other allies. That is not a threat. It is a consequence.

And yet no European alliance will replace the American market for an assembly worker in Windsor.

The neighbour looks for other neighbours, for lack of a hearing.

The ally’s basket

The final tally

Here is the tally, without adjectives.

For Beijing: two months of truce, $30 billion in promised relief, an investment council, a crisis channel.

For Ottawa: 50% on $27.6 billion, 10% on most goods, bans on Tuesday.

There is the list. It reads in ten seconds. Two lines. Two treatments.

And yet the first is Washington’s strategic rival, the second its neighbour and its largest energy supplier.

A two-speed alliance

Trump is right to talk to Beijing. He is wrong to treat the neighbour more harshly than the rival.

An ally is also measured by what it is spared.

What is an alliance worth to Ottawa when the rival negotiates a truce and the ally a tariff?

The first basket left by plane. The second is waiting at the border.

Thirty billion promised to the rival, fifty percent left to the ally.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• White House — fact sheet on Xi Jinping’s state visit, September 25, 2026
• Associated Press, PBS NewsHour — truce extended and an AI channel, September 26, 2026
• Congressional Research Service — American tariffs on Canada, September 16, 2026

Secondary Sources:

• Policy Magazine — what the Trump-Xi summit changes for Canada, September 20, 2026
• Deutsche Welle — the Busan truce extended until January, September 26, 2026
• The Globe and Mail — the alignment demanded of partners, September 27, 2026