Saudi Arabia

Carney Visits Saudi Arabia

Is Canada's Saudi Arabia deal bold trade diversification or a troubling compromise of Canadian values?

JUL 10·Updated JUL 14

Story

Above: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman welcomes Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Jeddah on July 9. Image credit: Saudi Press Agency/Handout/Xinhua

The Facts

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah on Thursday, marking the first visit by a Canadian prime minister to Saudi Arabia in 26 years. The two leaders signed 13 commercial agreements and memorandums of understanding worth more than CA$1 billion ($706 million).
MINING.COM
CP24
Reuters
The agreements span mining, critical minerals, energy, artificial intelligence, defense, health care and education. Both governments also committed to concluding a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement by early 2027 and launched negotiations on a double-taxation treaty.
Prime Minister of Canada
NewsWire
Canadian AI firm Cohere and Saudi Arabia-backed AI company Humain announced a strategic computing partnership under which Humain will designate at least 50 megawatts of dedicated AI compute capacity to support Cohere's next-generation foundation models, with deployment expected by the fourth quarter of 2027.
The National News
Reuters
Carney said the visit was part of a broader effort to diversify Canada's trade partnerships amid U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs and threats to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Saudi Arabia is Canada's second-largest trading partner in the Middle East, with bilateral trade exceeding $20 billion since 2020.
The Associated Press
NewsWire
Prime Minister of Canada
Canada and Saudi Arabia restored full diplomatic ties in 2023 after a five-year rift that began when the Trudeau government publicly criticized Saudi Arabia's human rights record in 2018, prompting Riyadh to expel Canada's ambassador and suspend trade and investment.
The Associated Press
Unpublished

Sources Split

LEFT

CENTER

RIGHT

ESTAB
CRIT

CENTER

PRO
ESTAB

The Spin

Narrative A

Canada's $1 billion-plus deal with Saudi Arabia is exactly the kind of bold trade diversification the country needs right now. Locking in 13 commercial agreements across mining, AI, energy and health tech creates real jobs and opens doors to a $1.8 trillion economy.

Asharq Al-Awsat

NewsWire

Prime Minister of Canada

Narrative B

Chasing billion-dollar deals with a regime that hands out death sentences for tweets is a troubling trade-off. Saudi Arabia's human rights record has gotten worse, and Canada is not even high on Riyadh's priority list — so the leverage here is minimal. Sidelining cases like Raif Badawi's to close commercial agreements sets a damaging precedent for Canadian values abroad.

Unpublished