In the News

Trump’s meeting with Xi Jinping could includes energy talks: policy expert

CTV News, September 24, 2026

Featuring: Jeff Nankivell, President & CEO, APF Canada

Excerpt: Nankivell told CTV News that both Trump and Xi are looking for, to paraphrase Chinese officials, a "relationship of constructive, strategic stability." He adds that Trump is aiming for a smooth visit that "avoids [any] further escalation of the trade war...The overriding objective is to keep things on an even keel for now."

Behind closed doors, Nankivell says he "wouldn't be surprised if President Trump were to be asking President Xi to help [stabilize the price of oil] by leaning on Iran" to conclude the war through China's diplomatic channels and by adjusting China's oil reserves. "If China draws down on its oil reserves, that helps keep the international price of oil lower. If China decides to start buying [oil] again, that will drive the price up. So President Xi has a lot of leverage in that conversation."

Trade war vibe check

POLITICO (Playbook Canada), September 24, 2026

Featuring: Jeff Nankivell, President & CEO, APF Canada

Excerpt: On the docket: Critical minerals, Bill C-238 and home-energy refits:

Heather Exner-Pirot (Macdonald-Laurier Institute), Pierre Gratton (Mining Association of Canada), Jeff Nankivell (Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada) and Todd Smith (Candu Energy) are on the expert roster at the House International Trade Committee as it studies clean energy and critical minerals exports.

Why Canada's rolling out the red carpet for Vietnamese President Tô Lâm

CBC News, September 24, 2026

Featuring: Jeff Nankivell, President & CEO, APF Canada

Excerpt: Canada is also working to finalize a free trade agreement with the Association of South East Nations (ASEAN). Vietnam could prove clutch in those efforts, since it is a prominent member of the intergovernmental regional organization, says Jeff Nankivell, President & CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

Nankivell says Canada is likely to find a willing partner in Vietnam, which has also faced punishing American tariffs, with the U.S. at one point slapping a 40 per cent levy on goods determined to have been transshipped through Vietnam.

"Everyone in the world is looking to diversify," he said. "When we knock on the door of a country like Vietnam, it opens very quickly because they have a similar interest in diversifying."

"...On conventional energy, LNG and crude oil, there could be statements of intention on the Vietnamese side to look to Canada for future supplies."

Arctic security workshop in Whitehorse examines foreign threats

Yukon News, September 23, 2026

Featuring: Arctic Workshop (Yukon): Confronting Hybrid Threats in the Arctic

Excerpt: A two-day workshop bringing together roughly 30 representatives from the military, governments, First Nations, industry, and international think tanks began in Whitehorse on Sept. 22.

The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada aims to make the gathering on emerging Arctic security challenges a regular fixture on Canada’s security calendar.

The workshop comes as the Foundation cites federal intelligence officials warning Parliament that China poses a threat to Canada’s economic security, particularly around Northern critical minerals.

The State visit to Canada by General Secretary and President To Lam: An opportunity for Vietnam-Canada relations to reach a new level.

Vietnam.VN, September 19, 2026

Featuring: Barrett Bingley, Asia Regional Director, Singapore Office, APF Canada; Ari Van Assche, 2025-26 John H. McArthur Research Fellow, APF Canada.

Excerpt: "In an analysis from early 2026, Professor Ari Van Assche of HEC Montréal, a research fellow at the Canada Asia Pacific Foundation, argued that trade diversification cannot simply be about selling more goods outside the US market or signing more agreements, but more importantly, about positioning partners within strategic value chains. He called this approach “managed interdependence”: choosing reliable partners, identifying vulnerable links, and investing in sectors that determine resilience. Canada, he argued, must choose depth of linkage in strategic sectors rather than spreading itself too thin.

...A July 2026 report by Barrett Bingley, Asia Regional Director of the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada, highlighted an imminent challenge. The CPTPP and the European Union (EU) have been in formal dialogue since November 2025 on digital trade and supply chains. The 11th CPTPP Ministerial Council meeting in Hanoi in November 2026 will demonstrate the potential for transformation. Combined, the two blocs account for approximately 32% of global GDP and 37% of world trade, providing a significant counterweight to protectionism and the fragmentation of the rules of the game."

Panel 4: Tariffs, Trade Deals, and International Geoeconomic Shocks | Manila Strategy Forum 2026

Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), September 19, 2026

Featuring: Irene Chan, Senior Research Program Manager, Singapore Office, APF Canada.

Excerpt: "Southeast Asian governments, Canada, and other middle powers are facing external shocks such as intensifying Sino-U.S. competition, technological restrictions, wars, and supply chain restrictions. But these restrictions play out across very different domestic economies and political priorities. For instance, Vietnam's dependence on the U.S. export market creates one set of vulnerabilities, Indonesia's industrial policy ambitions create another, and the Philippines' maritime dispute with China and its alliance with the U.S. creates yet another set of vulnerabilities.

So when we ask whether geopolitical shocks are pushing Southeast Asia towards China or the U.S., I think we need to look at individual policy choices that governments are actually making."

Canada is upping oil flows to Asia, but South-east Asia’s refineries aren’t ready to handle them yet

The Business Times (Singapore), September 17, 2026

Featuring: Barrett Bingley, Asia Regional Director, Singapore Office, APF Canada

Excerpt: Canada is ramping up its oil exports to Asia as the Middle East conflict disrupts energy flows, but South-east Asia’s refineries are finding that incompatible infrastructure is preventing them from readily tapping this new supply.

... In 2025, Canada’s non-US crude exports surged to C$10 billion (US$7.2 billion), averaging roughly 430,000 barrels a day, up from “effectively zero”, noted Barrett Bingley, Asia regional director at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

With Canada looking for alternative markets, Trans Mountain data showed that between May 2024 and July 2026, around two-thirds of the estimated 640 tankers loaded at the Westridge Marine Terminal in Vancouver arrived in Asia.

Canada’s pivot to Asia is finally real. The challenge is that neither side knows much about the other

Fortune, September 7, 2026

Contributor: Barrett Bingley, Asia Regional Director, Singapore Office, APF Canada

Excerpt: "For four decades, Canadian commercial life has been organized around the belief that access to the U.S. market was a constant, rather than a variable. That assumption no longer holds, whether or not tariffs are here to stay.

So where should Canadians look to next? The answer is Asia—if both sides can overcome their mutual ignorance.

... Fortunately, the groundwork for Canada’s expansion into Asia has already been laid.

... Yet with all this support, too few businesspeople—on either side of the Pacific—know what’s going on.

Polling by the Angus Reid Institute for the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada found that 73% of Canadians say they know little or nothing about South Korea; 82% say the same of Singapore, and 90% of Malaysia. Yet 78% supported Canada’s CPTPP membership. Canadians endorse the agreement while knowing almost nothing about the countries inside it."

News funding as a bargaining chip: Could the U.S.-Canada trade war let Big Tech off the hook?

Editor & Publisher, September 5, 2026

Featuring: Hugh Stephens, Distinguished Fellow, APF Canada

Excerpt: "Hugh Stephens, a distinguished fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and executive fellow at the University of Calgary, drew a distinction between a trade grievance and a trade violation.

Discussing the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, known in Canada as CUSMA, Stephens explained that American lists of trade irritants contain a broad assortment of industry objections. Inclusion does not establish that a policy breaches the agreement. “Well, it hasn't been challenged by the US,” he said of the news law. “I don't think it is a violation.”

You can watch the accompanying vodcast with Hugh Stephens here.

A recommendation for CPTPP-EU linkages

VN Economy, August 31, 2026

Featuring: Barrett Bingley, Asia Regional Director, Singapore Office, APF Canada

Excerpt: Opening the Canada-Vietnam Forum on Economic Resilience and CPTPP-EU Linkages, held recently in Ho Chi Minh City, Mr. Barrett Bingley, Asia Regional Director at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, said the world was confronting unprecedented pressure on the rules-based trading order. In that environment, he argued, the CPTPP and the EU represent two of the world’s most robust high-standard trading frameworks, making the case for bringing them closer together “both strategically urgent and practically achievable.”

...For many speakers, the objective is best understood as improving interoperability rather than harmonization. Mr. Dan Ciuriak, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, argued that globalization has always been driven more by production than by trade itself. The WTO, he said, effectively provided the “operating system” that allowed globally-distributed manufacturing networks to function, while later generations of regional trade agreements continued to update that system after multilateral negotiations stalled.

Canada already traded away its ‘sovereignty’ with CUSMA

The Hub, August 28, 2026

Featuring: Hugh Stephens, Distinguished Fellow, APF Canada

Excerpt: According to Prime Minister Mark Carney, last weekend’s decision to dramatically leave the negotiating table with the U.S. came down in large part to Canada’s outright refusal to trade away its most precious product: its sovereignty

But hidden in the fine print of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) was a line that gave the U.S. a sort of veto over any future free trade agreement we might plan to sign with China, or any other “non-market country.”

“Of all the penalties we have had to pay to get the North American free-trade agreement essentially renewed, this is the highest. We have just sacrificed our independent trade (and arguably foreign) policy on the altar of the USMCA,” said Hugh Stephens, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in 2018. “What were our negotiators thinking?”

US transshipment ‘scam’ claims put Asean exporters in a bind

South China Morning Post (SCMP), August 18, 2026

Featuring: Barrett Bingley, Asia Regional Director, Singapore Office, APF Canada

Excerpt: Southeast Asian exporters may soon face a heavier burden of proof to show they are not helping Chinese goods dodge US tariffs after the White House named nine countries in the region as part of what it called a global “Shadow Transshipment Network”.

“A supply chain touching China is different from illegal transshipment, and we cannot let [Peter] Navarro gaslight the region on this,” said international trade specialist Barrett Bingley, Asia Regional Director for APF Canada, referring to the White House trade adviser who led the report.

“A multinational corporation moving production to Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand or Indonesia can be doing real diversification, not just slapping a new label on Chinese goods.”

Turmoil in the Middle East has upended the world’s helium supplies, Canada has the resources to help

The Canadian Press (via The Globe and Mail), August 2, 2026

Featuring: Karen Hui, Project Co-ordinator, Indo-Pacific Critical Minerals Hub, APF Canada

Excerpt: Helium has a wide array of uses, and in almost all cases there is nothing that can act as a substitute. The inert element cools MRI machines, pressurizes rocket components and helps detect leaks in nuclear plants. It’s also a vital input in the manufacturing of advanced computer chips, representing an estimated 10 to 15 per cent of global helium demand as the artificial intelligence sector booms.

“And that share is rising pretty fast,” said Karen Hui, project co-ordinator with the Asia Pacific Foundation’s Canada-Indo-Pacific Critical Minerals Hub. Big Asian players in the chip manufacturing space, like Taiwan and South Korea, are hugely dependent on Qatari helium, and tend not to keep much in the way of backup supplies, she said.

And then there’s the Strait of Hormuz to contend with. Since the war began, few ships have been able to exit the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf with the open sea.

“It’s very likely that Qatar won’t fully restart until they trust the strait is genuinely safe, and we are not seeing that right now,” Hui said.

Canada and Vietnam jointly focus on economic resilience and deepen cooperation in AI and energy.

Singa Tao Daily, July 29, 2026

Featuring: Economic Resilience and CPTPP-EU Linkages Vietnam-Canada Forum 2026

Excerpt: Not only did Vietnamese Prime Minister Le Minh Hung and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney exchange views by phone last week, but Conservative Party Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Gateway Economic Cooperation Group and Member of Parliament Chak Au also recently visited Vietnam to participate in an economic and trade forum, further promoting Canada-Vietnam relations.

During his visit to Vietnam, Au Chak Kwong attended the EU-CPTPP Forum and the Third Senior Officials Meeting of the CPTPP.

Au Chak-kwong told Sing Tao Daily that his biggest takeaway from the trip was that countries are actively seeking investment, supply chain development, and strategic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.

"Non-tariff barriers such as supply chain security, regulatory coordination, product standards, certification systems, and customs procedures are the issues that businesses are most concerned about right now, and they are also the key factors affecting whether free trade agreements can truly play their role."

Lack of global response will hinder any Canadian retaliation to Trump’s tariffs, says former senior Liberal adviser

The Hill Times, July 28, 2026

Featuring: Vice-President, Research & Strategy, Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada

Excerpt: Nadjibulla says there are several reasons why co-ordination has proven to be difficult, remarking that countries have a varying degree of exposure to the U.S., and face different tariff rates and exclusions

“That makes it harder to identify a single measure around which a coalition could form. It also allows the United States to conclude agreements with some countries while concentrating pressure on others...The implicit possibility that disputes in one area could affect American co-operation in another gives Washington additional leverage."

Nadjibulla said collective action could still grow if countries decide that the agreements they have struck only give them temporary protection.

“It is too soon to conclude that Carney’s middle-power agenda is not working. The difficulty of generating a collective response to date demonstrates why building durable coalitions, shared economic instruments, and greater strategic capacity will be a long-term project rather than an automatic reaction to the latest American measure."

India ‘Cockroach’ protests: What’s behind the youth-led movement?

Global News, July 21, 2026

Featuring: Vice-President, Research & Strategy, Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada

Excerpt: Nadjibulla explains to Global News that hopeful Indian students spend "years trying to prepare for medical school exams [and] families go into debt" to give students the chance to sit for the test, whilst there continues to be "few opportunities" for medical education in India.

According to her, the medical exam cheating scandal has inflamed growing youth frustration with corruption in the government and has led to protestors calling for the resignation of India's Education minister and compensation for students and families severely impacted by the scandal.

Nadjibulla adds that "this is one of the largest [Indian] anti-government protests we have seen in years."

Experts discuss advancing CPTPP

Vietnam Investment Review, July 21, 2026

Featuring: Economic Resilience and CPTPP-EU Linkages Vietnam-Canada Forum 2026

Excerpt: The high-level dialogue examines how closer cooperation between the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the European Union (EU) can strengthen economic resilience, reinforce rules-based trade, and unlock new opportunities for businesses.

Barrett Bingley, Asia Regional Director of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, said that the trade and investment flows of tomorrow will not be defined by the largest economies alone.

“It will be shaped by countries willing to work together to strengthen trust, build resilient supply chains, and uphold a rules-based trading system. By fostering dialogue across governments, business, and academia, today's forum demonstrates the growing leadership of Canada and Vietnam in advancing that vision while creating practical pathways for closer cooperation between the CPTPP and the European Union,” Bingley said.

Vietnam, Canada highlight deeper CPTPP-EU cooperation

VnEconomy, July 20, 2026

Featuring: Economic Resilience and CPTPP-EU Linkages Vietnam-Canada Forum 2026

Excerpt: The Economic Resilience and CPTPP-EU Linkages Vietnam-Canada Forum 2026 was jointly organized by the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada (APF Canada), and the Embassy of Canada in Vietnam on July 20 in Ho Chi Minh City, on the sidelines of the Third CPTPP Senior Officials' Meeting of 2026.

Speaking during the forum, Mr. Barrett Bingley of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada said the future of global trade and investment would not be determined solely by the world's largest economies, but increasingly by countries prepared to work together to strengthen trust, reinforce resilient supply chains and uphold a rules-based international trading system.

He said the dialogue demonstrated the growing leadership of Canada and Vietnam in advancing that vision by bringing together governments, businesses and academic institutions to develop practical pathways for closer cooperation between CPTPP economies and the European Union.

Senior officials’ meeting highlights economic resilience, stronger CPTPP–EU linkages

Vietnam+, July 20, 2026

Featuring: Economic Resilience and CPTPP-EU Linkages Vietnam-Canada Forum 2026

Excerpt: Barrett Bingley, Asia Regional Director for the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, said that by promoting dialogue among governments, businesses and academia, the forum underscores the growing leadership role of Canada and Vietnam in advancing a practical roadmap for closer cooperation between the CPTPP and the EU.

Discussions also highlighted Vietnam's unique position as one of the few economies that is both a member of the CPTPP and a partner in the EU–Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), placing the Southeast Asian country at the intersection of two of the world's most ambitious trade frameworks.

Enhancing economic resilience and CPTPP-EU linkages.

Vietnam.VN, July 20, 2026

Featuring: Economic Resilience and CPTPP-EU Linkages Vietnam-Canada Forum 2026

Excerpt: On the afternoon of July 20th, in Ho Chi Minh City, the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada (APF Canada), in collaboration with the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Canadian Embassy in Vietnam, organized the Canada-Vietnam Forum 2026: Economic Resilience and CPTPP-EU Linkages.

Barrett Bingley of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada pointed out that future trade and investment flows will not only be shaped by the largest economies, but are expected to come from countries willing to cooperate in building sustainable supply chains and maintaining rules-based trading systems. Simultaneously, by fostering dialogue between governments, businesses, and academia, the Canada-Vietnam Forum 2026 affirms the increasing leadership roles of Canada and Vietnam in realizing the vision of creating a practical roadmap for closer cooperation between the CPTPP and the EU.

In the News

APF Canada's media responses to the latest issues and events in Asia presented in chronological order