ISTANBUL

China on Monday said its economic ties with Canada do “not” target any third party but are “conducive” to world peace, after the US threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Ottawa over any trade pact with Beijing.

Beijing “believes countries need to approach state-to-state relations in the spirit of win-win, rather than the mentality of zero sum, through cooperation, rather than confrontation,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters in the Chinese capital.

US President Donald Trump on Saturday wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: "If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% tariff against all Canadian goods and products coming into the U.S.A."

However, Guo said China and Canada established “a new type of strategic partnership and made some specific arrangements on properly handling economic and trade issues between the two countries.”

This, he added, “reflects the spirit of equality, openness, inclusiveness, peaceful cooperation, joint sharing and mutual benefit.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney paid an official visit to China early this month, which Chinese President Xi Jinping described as a “turning point” in bilateral relations.

Carney remarked that Canada’s ties with China were “more predictable” than those with its southern neighbor under Trump.

Canada and China established relations in 1970, and the bilateral trade volume stood at $67 billion at the end of 2024.