Carney touches down in Japan as he drives for new deals with old partners

Prime Minister Mark Carney has touched down in Tokyo for a quick 24-hour visit to connect with his recently elected Japanese counterpart and shore up relations with a major Indo-Pacific partner. 

This visit to Japan, the last of Carney’s swing through the region after visits to India and Australia, will include a one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and some sort of signing ceremony on further cooperation before, like past stops on this trip, he takes a series of private meetings that are closed to the press.

Carney is the first world leader to visit with Takaichi since she won a landslide victory in the country’s February election. The visit also coincides with Takaichi’s 65th birthday — and he is bringing her a cake loaded with Canadian ingredients, including maple syrup, for dessert at a dinner later Friday night.

Still, like much of this 10-day tour, the program is mostly all business as Carney drives for new deals from old partners.

As U.S.-based automakers pull back from vehicle assembly in Canada amid pressure from President Donald Trump to bolster American manufacturing, Japanese companies like Honda and Toyota have become increasingly relevant players for the future of the sector.

Those firms are now responsible for 77 per cent of all light vehicles produced in Canada as of early 2026, marking a significant rise from 44 per cent in 2016, according to the Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing, a non-profit think-tank at Western University. 

While in Japan’s business hub, Carney will make a play for even more investment by those firms in Canada to replace what’s been lost by the departing Americans. 

One topic of discussion while Carney’s here could be his recent deal with China to allow some 50,000 Chinese-made EVs into the Canadian market in exchange for tariff relief on some farm and seafood products.

On the surface this deal has nothing to do with Japan but this visit could be, in part, about reassuring leaders in Tokyo that the agreement with China is a narrow deal on certain sectors and not about supplanting its relationship with Japan, historically Canada’s strongest East Asian ally, said Vina Nadjibulla, the vice-president of research and strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. 

“I think Japan was watching the China trip with a little bit more trepidation than our other allies would,” she said. “Japan is a big investor in the Canadian auto sector. Inviting Chinese investments — that will have implications for the Japanese,” she said. 

China and Japan don’t get along and there’s been some recent tension. 

“So much of our focus has been, of course, on President Trump and his economic coercion. But Japan is still dealing with a very difficult situation with China. I think, for Canada, we need to show democratic solidarity and we need to have some frank conversations with them about our Indo-Pacific strategy and how it’s evolving,” Nadjibulla said. 

Asked about possible Japanese concerns over Sino-Canadian relations at a pre-departure background briefing with reporters, a senior government social said the Chinese EV deal has “nothing in there that should cause concern to Japan.”

Indeed, there is no visible sign of tension between Canada and Japan. The two recently signed a memorandum allowing for intelligence sharing on defence procurement matters to make it easier to buy each other’s military equipment. This visit is expected to produce further agreements, officials said.