Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is pursuing a sweeping strategic realignment — courting global investors, forging deeper ties with Europe and maintaining a careful tone toward Washington — as a bruising trade war with the United States reshapes Canada's economic outlook. Speaking at a landmark two-day Canada Investment Summit in Toronto on Tuesday, Carney told an audience of more than 100 major investors, representing over C$120 trillion in assets, that Canada was "perfectly situated to build in the new global economic order" and pledged to attract C$1 trillion (roughly $720 billion) in investment over the next five years.

The summit yielded nearly C$500 billion in new investment commitments across critical infrastructure, digital technology, energy and defence. Among the headline announcements was a plan to allow private investment into operations at four of Canada's busiest airports — in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary — while the federal government retains ownership of the underlying land. Ottawa also unveiled new tax incentives, including a so-called "mega deduction," and promised streamlined regulatory approvals, with a target review timeline of one year for major projects. Carney held bilateral meetings with executives including BlackRock's Larry Fink and Blackstone president Jon Gray. The summit drew protests, however, with critics accusing the government of orchestrating a "great Canadian sell-off" of public assets to private and foreign interests, including American ones.

The diplomatic backdrop is stark. Trade talks between Ottawa and Washington collapsed last month, triggering 50% US duties on roughly C$28 billion worth of Canadian goods and Canadian counter-tariffs of up to 50% on approximately C$27.6 billion in American imports. With no resumption of formal negotiations in sight, Carney is now heading to Europe. He is scheduled to speak at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, and attend European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's State of the European Union address. Canada is seeking what Carney described as a "unique alliance" with the EU — not membership, and not a Norway- or Switzerland-style arrangement, but a bespoke deal centred on investment, trade and security that could potentially allow Canadians to live and work across the bloc without visa restrictions. He will also meet UK interlocutors in Liverpool to discuss defence, artificial intelligence, energy and critical minerals.

Despite the pivot, Carney was careful to leave the door open to Washington. "We will always be neighbours, and Canada will continue to be the US's most important partner in many key areas," he told American executives attending the Toronto summit, adding that Canada aimed to emerge from the dispute "stronger, more resilient, more independent." Analysts and commentators argue that the broader shift reflects something deeper than a bilateral dispute. The upheaval in American foreign policy — described by some observers as a move away from multilateral democratic leadership toward a more transactional and unpredictable posture — is pushing countries worldwide to quietly diversify their economic and security partnerships. For Canada, a nation that has historically oriented almost all its trade southward, the reckoning is particularly acute. As one senior Canadian banker put it, "Canadians have woken to opportunities in Asia and in Europe."