As Carney pulls away from USA, Africa seen as ‘necessity.’

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney showed up at South Africa’s G20 summit of major economies in Johannesburg in November 2025 quoting Nelson Mandela, yet lawmakers and policy analysts back home say lofty rhetoric isn’t enough. As tariff battles with America are fracturing decades-old trade assumptions, they insist Canada must pivot toward Africa as a priority economic partner.

The Canadian Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade has urged Carney’s government to “fully engage in Africa or risk being left behind.” A major study from the panel issued just after the G20 said Canada should create a measurable plan to execute an Africa strategy that boosts the African free trade area, steps up contacts with the African Union, expands development finance and integrates Africa in Carney’s trade diversification agenda.

“At a time of geopolitical uncertainty and threats to open trade, the committee believes that building stronger partnerships in Africa represents not only an economic opportunity but also a strategic necessity,” the senators said in the December 2025 report. “Canada should act decisively to prioritize its engagement in Africa.”

Carney is pursuing deals around the world to reduce economic reliance on the suddenly unfriendly, “America First” version of the United States hawked by Donald Trump. The rambunctious American leader openly covets the steadfast ally to the north as the “51st state,” a rude challenge to Canada’s sovereignty and NATO defense role. The American shift also weighs on Canada’s USD 2.2 trillion economy, which is struggling to grow as business investment in machinery, commercial buildings and intellectual property is falling, according to Statistics Canada.

Carney pursues Asia deal

To move away from the shaky U.S. partnership, Carney seeks to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports during the next decade, possibly adding CAD 300 billion in trade. Stifling the insult-spewing world leader in the White House is the maple syrup on this strategy. In October, Carney visited Singapore, Southeast Asia’s top investor in Canada, to discuss completion of an ASEAN free trade deal in 2026 with the region’s economies.

You may think Europe is Carney’s natural orientation, having led the Bank of England, Britain’s 331-year-old central bank – the first non-Brit to do so. The EU and Britain contributed significantly to Canada’s 50 percent boost in non-U.S. exports since 2018 to almost CAD 300 billion. In that growth surge under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Africa was absent from the top 15 markets.

Even so, Canada’s merchandise trade with African countries totaled CAD 15 billion in 2024, a gain of almost 30 percent in five years, according to the government. International aid also has grown. Carney may see an opportunity. During years at the Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs, Carney helped post-apartheid South Africa gain access to international bond markets.
 
Carney invoked Mandela at the G20 meeting, saying that the South African liberator’s words in support of multinational efforts to solve common problems, “spoke to a moment of rebirth in South Africa, and today, they can guide how we lead the way forward, from this moment of rupture.”

Canada faces ‘the gradual erosion of its relevance in Africa,’ says the country’s Senate panel on foreign and trade affairs.

In March 2025, as Carney took office, Canada released an Africa strategy that promised strengthened diplomatic engagement, stepped-up economic outreach via a trade mission and trade hub, and creation of an Africa trade and development program. The strategy also pledges to work more on conflict prevention and raising African influence in global affairs and forums.

The Canadian Centre for African Affairs and Policy Research said the Senate’s recommendations would help move beyond engagement with Africa that’s been “episodic, fragmented, and insufficient for the scale of the moment.”

Africa investment push

Yet Canada is stirring. In Johannesburg, Canada and South Africa announced talks on an investment promotion agreement intended to bring private capital to infrastructure, clean energy and minerals. Two-way trade with South Africa, Canada’s biggest partner in Africa, reached almost 3 billion dollars in 2024. The countries have finished negotiations on a nuclear cooperation agreement for energy generation. And FinDev Canada, the country’s development finance agency, is opening a Cape Town office in 2026 to expand Canadian investment across Africa.

In mid-December, FinDev announced a USD 20 million commitment to a private credit fund managed by the firm Ninety One for infrastructure and enterprises in Africa. About USD 840 million of FinDev’s USD 2 billion portfolio is invested in sub-Saharan Africa, the largest destination for its money. Its first investment, in 2018, was USD 10 million for Kenya-based M-Kopa, a pay-as-you-go off-grid solar energy provider. In 2023, M-Kopa got USD 20 million more from Canada for a fintech expansion to reach unbanked consumers.

As 2025 wrapped up, Canada approved the merger of Canada’s Teck Resources and Britain’s Anglo American into Anglo Teck, a USD 50 billion mining giant with headquarters in Vancouver and major iron ore operations in South Africa. (Anglo American spun off its important platinum mining business into a new South African company, Valterra.)

In northwestern Zambia, Canada’s Barrick Mining is spending USD 2 billion to double copper production amid demand for electric vehicles and other clean-energy products. Canada plans to upgrade its presence in Zambia to a full embassy. Meanwhile, Canada’s aid agency is investing in research on responsible AI and data sovereignty in Africa. From a frosty Canada, glimpses of an African spring are emerging.

Feature photo: Carney meets with President Trump at the White House, May 6, 2025, by Daniel Torok/White House