Under no circumstances should Canada’s response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war include expanding economic ties with the People’s Republic of China. There is no political or moral gain to be had from that, and any short-term economic gain could have disastrous consequences in the long run.

In the Globe and Mail, columnist Lawrence Martin suggested that China would be a willing partner when it comes to expanding Canada’s international trade. With all due respect to Martin, this mentality towards China should be left in the dust.

Once upon a time, expanding trade with China may have appeared to make sense. In the 1990s, a quasi-consensus formed in the West that the world’s largest communist dictatorship could be tamed by free trade and exposure to the democratic world.

Western leaders like Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, U.S. President Bill Clinton and Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating embraced greater economic integration with China, seeing it as the next great frontier of global commerce following the Cold War.

This was the era when the Chinese Communist Party only murdered and threatened its own citizens, rather than foreigners. The Chinese army massacred an estimated 10,000 demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989, but refrained from taking Canadian hostages during international disputes.

Apparently, this was an acceptable compromise for those western leaders, who deepened trade ties with China and helped get it admitted to the World Trade Organization in 2001.

For Canada, it was another step towards cultivating a relationship with Beijing that began with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s visit in 1973. The fascination of the Trudeau clan with one of the world’s most brutal regimes is rather unnerving, matched only by the bewildering character of the soft attitudes still held towards China by Canada’s elder statesmen.

Yet this is not the 1990s. If Canada’s leadership class dreams of integration with China, the European Union’s toxic relationship with Russia should serve as a cautionary tale.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, western European states turned Russia into their gas station. Russian gas powered European homes and factories, allowing giants like Volkswagen to churn automobiles off their assembly lines and onto global markets, with China being one of the most important.

With the profits from gas sales, Russian President Vladimir Putin consolidated his rule and positioned himself as the country’s saviour. Then Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The economic shock sprung on the EU by Putin’s invasion was massive.

European energy bills blasted through the roof after westward Russian energy exports were squeezed and cut off, with Ukraine finally ending the transmission of Russian gas across its territory at the beginning of January.

The soaring cost of energy was a big reason why Volkswagen made the once-unthinkable decision to close some of its factories. Those shuttered German assembly lines may soon be taken over by Chinese auto manufacturers.

Like their counterparts in Europe, many Canadian leaders also see China as the lifeline in the wake of Trump’s protectionist agenda. But accepting the hand offered by Beijing would be akin to drinking from a poisoned chalice.

It would be a damning decision to become friends with a state that takes Canadian citizens hostage and harasses the Chinese diaspora in Canada if they express political dissent. That is to say nothing of how China is building towards a potential invasion of Taiwan.

People question whether China is actually serious about invading Taiwan, but its aggressive war games in the Taiwan Strait and the construction of invasion barges on the Chinese side provide solid clues.

The European experience with Russia is reason enough for Canada not to consider expanding ties with a state that could plunge the world into war and cause economic chaos.

If Canada must expand its trade ties, it should do so with other rising Asian economies like Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand. As former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz has said, Canada can achieve with them what we have achieved with China over the last two decades.

Looking south, Mexico is another enticing option, as it shares the headache of reckoning with Trump’s shake-up of North American commerce. Doing whatever we can to grow trade with these partners offers the best chance to save our economy and avoid getting entangled with an increasingly anti-western authoritarian regime.

It will take years for our trade with alternative partners to approach the volumes currently flowing from China, but viewing international trade through a purely economic lens in 2025 is profoundly unserious. The world is not democratizing, as many had hoped after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The dream of harmonious trade ties between democracies and the world’s most dangerous dictatorship is old and outdated, to say nothing of its moral bankruptcy.

If Trump follows through on his tariff threat, it will be painful for Canada, but likely temporary. This moment still presents an opportunity to diversify our trade, and for posterity’s sake, we should embrace it. But we must realize that Beijing is not our friend, and suggestions that we shackle ourselves further to the Chinese Communist Party should be greeted with nothing but contempt.

National Post