Canada IV: The Twenty Who Remained Outside the Shield

“Canada does not need to choose only one table.”

“Geography places Canada next to the United States. Economics forces it to trade with it. But neither requires Ottawa to close the other doors of the planet.”

I. THE SHIELD HAS A DOOR

On September 22, 2026, in New York, fifteen governments signed a new declaration of the Shield of the Americas: the United States, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago. The document no longer speaks only of drug trafficking and security. It establishes three explicit pillars: economics, security, and multilateral coordination. The Shield therefore began to resemble something considerably broader than an alliance against the cartels.

That completely changes the question. Because if there is an economic pillar, then it matters to know who is inside, but also who decided to remain outside. And among those who did not sign are three economies that can hardly be considered marginal: Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. Two of them belong to the G7 or the G20; all three participate deeply in global trade, possess enormous natural resources and, together, represent several trillion dollars in annual output.

“A shield can protect those standing behind it. It also allows us to see who decided not to stand behind it.”

II. CANADA, MEXICO, AND BRAZIL

Canada and Mexico also share a characteristic that makes their absence especially significant: both share with the United States one of the largest integrated trade structures on the planet through the USMCA. Brazil, for its part, is the largest economy in Latin America, a founding member of BRICS, and an agricultural, mining, energy, and industrial power. None of the three is part of the Shield declaration.

They are not alone. If the complete group of sovereign states in the Americas is compared with the fifteen current signatories, an important group remains outside the structure. In addition to Canada, Mexico, and Brazil, various Caribbean and South American states appear there, twenty in total. The political picture, therefore, is considerably less simple than dividing the continent between Washington and its adversaries.

But the large numbers are concentrated. Canada, Mexico, and Brazil alone represent approximately US$6.4 trillion in nominal GDP using the latest comparable annual figures available. To that must be added the economies of the other American countries that also did not sign the declaration. This is not an empty economic space.

“Counting flags works for a photograph. Counting GDP, resources, markets, and population helps us understand the board.”

III. CANADA’S CALCULATOR CHANGED

In Canada III we left a calculator on the table. Washington was on one side; China, Europe, and the rest of the world appeared on the other. Canada does not necessarily need to choose between the United States and China. It can continue trading intensively with the United States while simultaneously increasing its trade with China, India, Brazil, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and other economies.

That is precisely what Mark Carney’s government is doing. Canada has declared its objective of diversifying its markets and reducing its vulnerability to excessive trade concentration. During 2026 it opened and deepened economic conversations with China, India, Russia, Brazil, Japan, and other countries. It does not mean abandoning the United States. It means trying to ensure that the United States is no longer the only calculator available.

With China, the movement has already produced results. Ottawa and Beijing announced a new strategic partnership in January covering clean energy, agriculture, trade, multilateral governance, security, and ties between their societies. Canada also allowed the entry of up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles at a tariff of 6.1%, while China agreed to a sharp reduction in the tariffs affecting Canadian canola seed.

“Canada is not moving its house. It is trying to open more doors.”

IV. INDIA IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PACIFIC

India deserves a chapter of its own. In 2024, bilateral trade in goods and services between Canada and India reached C$30.8 billion. The two governments have set a target of increasing it to C$70 billion by 2030 and are negotiating a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. In September 2026, Ottawa expressed optimism that those talks could be concluded before the end of the year.

Behind the figures are strategic sectors. India needs energy, critical minerals, and supply security. Canada possesses natural gas, uranium, potash, nickel, copper, oil, timber, food, and enormous mining capacity. Indian companies are studying investments in Canadian critical minerals, and there is interest in liquefied natural gas and nuclear cooperation. It does not take much imagination to understand the complementarity.

China has more than 1.4 billion inhabitants. India has a comparable population. For a country of around 40 million people like Canada, those two markets represent something much larger than an ideological argument.

“Markets do not ask where America ends. They ask where the buyers are.”

V. BRAZIL IS ALREADY AT THE OTHER TABLE

Brazil adds a different piece because it belongs to the American continent and at the same time is a founder of BRICS. In July 2026, Canada and Brazil held the fifth edition of their Strategic Partnership Dialogue in São Paulo. They discussed trade, investment, mining, energy, science, technology, defense, customs, and organized crime. Canada and Mercosur also maintain active negotiations aimed at reaching a free trade agreement.

And barely two months later, another significant coincidence occurred. Canada, Brazil, and India appeared together, accompanied by Australia, Barbados, the European Union, and Kenya, among the initial promoters of Partners for Multilateralism. Its declaration speaks of diversified supply chains, economic cooperation, reform of multilateral institutions, and reducing the vulnerabilities generated when economic interdependence is used as an instrument of pressure.

It is not BRICS. But it demonstrates something more important for this discussion: Canada is already building international structures alongside two fundamental members of the BRICS universe, Brazil and India, while simultaneously deepening its relationship with China.

“Before asking whether Canada will join BRICS, it may be worth looking at whom it is already talking to.”

VI. CANADA IN BRICS? — A DOOR WORTH LOOKING AT

Canada does not currently belong to BRICS, nor is there an official Canadian application for membership. But that does not make the question absurd. Quite the opposite. In a world where Ottawa seeks to diversify markets, reduce its trade dependence on the United States, and build deeper economic relationships in Asia, Latin America, and other regions, studying a rapprochement with BRICS would be perfectly consistent with a Canadian diversification strategy.

The first reason has names: China, India, and Brazil. China represents one of the largest markets on the planet and is already a fundamental trading partner for Canada. India is growing rapidly, needs energy, minerals, food, technology, and infrastructure, and Ottawa wants to substantially increase bilateral trade. Brazil is the largest Latin American economy and has complementarities with Canada in mining, energy, agriculture, industry, technology, and investment.

BRICS also opens a much larger geography. Alongside its original members are economies in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia that considerably expand the space of possible relationships. Saudi Arabia maintains close ties with the group; the United Arab Emirates participates as a member; Egypt and Ethiopia are also part of its expansion. For Canada, looking at that space only through its relationship with Washington would mean voluntarily reducing the commercial map available to it.

There is also the New Development Bank, created by BRICS as a multilateral financial institution for infrastructure and sustainable development projects. A potential Canadian rapprochement would allow the country to study additional mechanisms for investment, financing, and international cooperation without needing to abandon the Western institutions in which it participates. Canada could perfectly well maintain some relationships while developing others.

The monetary question deserves to be examined with the same logic. Canada trades internationally and possesses a strong currency of its own. If certain transactions with China could be conducted using Canadian dollars and yuan, with India Canadian dollars and rupees, or with Brazil Canadian dollars and reais, the relevant question should be practical: costs, risks, financial availability, and convenience for buyers and sellers. There is no economic reason to turn every commercial transaction into a declaration of geopolitical loyalty.

For Canada, diversification would also have obvious strategic value. A country with several large buyers has more alternatives when one of them imposes tariffs, changes access conditions, or uses its economic weight during a negotiation. China, India, Brazil, the Gulf countries, and other emerging economies would not replace the United States. They would expand Canada’s options. And having options is a concrete form of autonomy.

Canada possesses precisely what many of those economies need: oil, gas, uranium, potash, nickel, copper, timber, grains, mining technology, industrial knowledge, and enormous natural-resource reserves. On the other side are billions of consumers, major infrastructure needs, and economies that will continue demanding energy, food, and raw materials for decades. That complementarity deserves to be calculated before being dismissed for political reasons.

A rapprochement with BRICS would not necessarily have to begin by requesting a seat either. Canada could deepen trade agreements, participate in specific cooperation mechanisms, increase cross-investment, expand relations with the New Development Bank, and study forms of association before considering eventual membership. Geopolitics does not require jumping from one sidewalk to another. It also allows bridges to be built.

The real question for Ottawa would therefore be extraordinarily simple: what does Canada gain? If it gains larger markets, additional buyers for its resources, investment, new sources of financing, deeper relationships with China and India, and an international position less dependent on the decisions of a single neighbor, then the subject deserves to enter seriously into the Canadian calculator.

Canada has an advantage it sometimes seems to forget: it possesses what much of the world needs and can sell it in more than one direction. The United States will remain to the south. China and Japan are across the Pacific. Europe remains across the Atlantic. India is growing. Brazil is on the same continent. And BRICS connects an increasingly large part of that map.

“Canada is beginning to discover that diversification means expanding its room for decision and multiplying the spaces in which it can trade, negotiate, and act.”

VII. TRADING WITHOUT CHANGING ALL THE DOLLARS

Here another possibility appears that does not require Canada to join any bloc: progressively expanding commercial operations in national currencies. China and India have spent years developing mechanisms to carry out certain transactions without necessarily using the U.S. dollar as an intermediary. Brazil and China have also created mechanisms to facilitate operations in reais and yuan.

Canada could explore similar formulas whenever they are commercially convenient. A Canadian exporter selling to China does not need to turn every economic relationship into a geopolitical declaration. The same applies to India or Brazil. Companies, banks, and central banks can use different currencies depending on costs, liquidity, exchange-rate risks, and contractual conditions.

That does not mean “the end of the dollar” either. The dollar continues to occupy an important position in reserves, payments, debt, and international trade. Canada also has enormous financial integration with the United States. Monetary diversification would be precisely that: diversification, not instantaneous replacement.

“Dependence begins to look natural when it lasts too long. Sovereignty begins when someone remembers that other options always exist.”

VIII. MEXICO IS ALSO DOING ITS NUMBERS

Mexico transforms the Canadian discussion into a continental issue. The United States has Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. Both are tied to its economy through the USMCA. And neither appears among the fifteen signatories of the Shield declaration of September 22.

Canada and Mexico are free to develop new markets, expand their partners, and diversify their trade without needing to reduce their relationship with the United States. One thing does not exclude the other: they can keep Washington as a partner and, at the same time, open more space toward Europe, Asia, Latin America, and other economies.

North American integration can continue to exist while its members develop independent foreign relationships. That is precisely the difference between integration and subordination.

“Sharing a commercial house does not mean handing over the keys to every room.”

IX. THE SHIELD ALSO TALKS ABOUT MINERALS

There is another reason to look carefully at the new Shield of the Americas. Its economic declaration explicitly mentions critical-mineral supply chains, investment-screening mechanisms, and digital-infrastructure providers. We are supposedly no longer talking about police chasing drug traffickers. We are talking about lithium, copper, nickel, rare earths, technology, capital, and infrastructure.

That is where Canada and Brazil carry considerable weight. Canada possesses some of the largest mineral resources on the planet and an extraordinarily developed international mining industry. Brazil has iron, niobium, bauxite, manganese, graphite, rare earths, and numerous strategic resources. Mexico adds silver, copper, zinc, and a powerful manufacturing platform integrated into North America.

China, meanwhile, occupies central positions in the processing and industrial chains of numerous critical minerals. India needs increasing quantities of raw materials to sustain its industrialization. The board therefore begins to connect: Canada produces, Brazil produces, Mexico produces, China processes and manufactures, India demands and grows.

“Beneath diplomatic declarations, a mine always ends up appearing.”

X. THE CALENDAR PROBLEM

Donald Trump will constitutionally remain president until January 20, 2029. From September 2026, approximately two years and four months remain in his term. The Shield of the Americas will therefore eventually have to answer an unavoidable institutional question: is it a structure linked primarily to the Trump administration, or an organization capable of surviving different U.S. administrations?

The answer may change with the next elections. The Shield of the Americas is made up today mostly of right-wing and far-right governments, several of them emerging from close elections and politically reversible. If in the coming years those governments are defeated and replaced by administrations of a different political orientation, the mechanism would lose its political base and could certainly disappear.

“In international politics there is also a very cheap strategic tool: the calendar.”

XI. THE TWENTY COUNTRIES OUTSIDE ARE MOVING TOO

A photograph taken around a table can be misleading. Fifteen governments appear in a declaration and it can seem as though the entire continent had chosen one direction. But outside that photograph are Canada, Mexico, and Brazil, along with an additional group of seventeen American states that did not sign the September 22 document.

And those countries are not standing still either. Brazil belongs to BRICS and Mercosur. Mexico has an extensive network of trade agreements. Canada belongs to the G7, USMCA, CPTPP, and NATO, is actively negotiating with India, building a new economic relationship with China, talking with Mercosur, and has just participated alongside Brazil and India in a new multilateral initiative. There is not, therefore, only one American architecture. There are several overlapping architectures.

“Those who do not appear beneath the Shield have not disappeared from the map.”

XII. THE CALCULATOR NO LONGER HAS TWO BUTTONS

Canada III left a question on the table. The United States or China? Canada IV can offer a different answer: perhaps Canada does not have to accept that question.

The United States will remain important to Canada, but it does not have to be its only economic horizon. China can simultaneously become a larger market for food, energy, and natural resources. India can multiply its commercial relationship with Canada. Brazil can open another door toward South America and Mercosur. Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and other markets complete a network Ottawa is trying to expand.

BRICS then appears as a possible destination, as a possibility worth studying. Even without joining, Canada can trade much more with China, India, and Brazil, use payment mechanisms in other currencies when convenient, and expand its relations with institutions of the Global South. If it ever considers a formal rapprochement, it will have to place the benefits and costs on the same calculator.

The Shield of the Americas has just raised a structure. Canada decided to remain outside. Mexico did too. Brazil did too. And seventeen more did as well. It demonstrates something simpler: America is no longer organized around a single table.

“Canada has already discovered that the map has more than one door. Now it must decide which ones it wants to keep open.”

XIII. THE CALCULATOR IN DOLLARS

Canada already has considerable trade with the markets that could sustain a much more diversified strategy. The 2025 figures allow us to observe the starting point. With the European Union, Canada exchanged approximately C$134.3 billion in goods; with China, around C$125 billion; with Mexico, C$62.3 billion; with Brazil, C$14.7 billion; with India, C$13.6 billion; and with Saudi Arabia, approximately C$2.7 billion. We are not talking about imaginary markets. We are talking about buyers and suppliers that already exist.

Converted into U.S. dollars using the Bank of Canada’s average 2025 exchange rate — C$1.3978 per US$1 — those six markets alone represent approximately US$252 billion annually in merchandise trade. The European Union accounts for around US$96.1 billion; China, US$89.4 billion; Mexico, US$44.6 billion; Brazil, US$10.5 billion; India, US$9.7 billion; and Saudi Arabia around US$1.9 billion. Russia must be kept separate from this total because the sanctions and restrictions currently in force mean that its present trade is not comparable with the other markets.

(“Russia remains a market of enormous scale: its imports of goods total around US$293 billion and its total merchandise trade approximately US$786 billion. Canada, for its part, exported close to C$778 billion in goods in 2025. The figures do not mean that the two countries could trade freely tomorrow, but they show the economic scale that would exist behind an eventual normalization of their trade relations.”)

The truly interesting figure is not only how much Canada trades today, but how much that amount could grow. The Canadian government itself reports that its exports to partners other than the United States had increased by approximately C$56 billion between 2024 and July 2026. Ottawa intends to continue expanding trade agreements from ASEAN to India and states that Canadian companies already have tariff-free access to around 1.5 billion consumers.

China offers industrial scale and more than one billion consumers. India offers another population exceeding one billion and a rapidly expanding economy. The European Union represents one of the largest integrated markets on the planet. Mexico connects manufacturing, food, mining, and industrial supply chains. Brazil brings the largest South American economy. Saudi Arabia combines capital, energy, infrastructure, and a gigantic investment program associated with Vision 2030.

Canada has something to place on those tables: oil, gas, uranium, potash, wheat, canola, timber, critical minerals, mining technology, artificial intelligence, engineering, financial services, and industrial expertise. On the other side, it can buy machinery, vehicles, electronics, industrial products, technology, manufactured goods, and capital. Trade then ceases to be a debate about choosing one country and becomes a much simpler matter: expanding buyers, suppliers, and sources of investment.

It does not even need to belong to BRICS to begin. It can trade with China, India, and Brazil today; expand relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; negotiate with Mercosur; deepen CETA with Europe; and develop new financial and commercial structures with those markets where mutual convenience exists. An eventual rapprochement with BRICS would be another possible piece of a much larger strategy, not a prerequisite for getting started.

“The Canadian calculator already has close to US$252 billion on these six tables. The interesting question is how much it could have ten years from now.”

XIV. OIL, CAPITAL, AND TWO COUNTRIES THAT KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE

Canada and Saudi Arabia appear, at first glance, to be energy competitors. Both possess enormous resources and participate in the global hydrocarbon market. But precisely for that reason they can also understand each other. Saudi Arabia possesses capital, oil expertise, financial capacity, and a gigantic program of economic transformation. Canada possesses oil, gas, uranium, critical minerals, technology, engineering, artificial intelligence, and an economy seeking new investment and new buyers.

The conversation has already begun. In July 2026, Mark Carney traveled to Saudi Arabia and met with Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman. It was the first visit by a Canadian prime minister to the kingdom in 26 years. The two governments established a Canada–Saudi Arabia Coordination Council and signed memoranda of understanding on energy and artificial intelligence. They also agreed to deepen investment, financial cooperation, and strategic projects.

There is one particularly interesting figure: Canada and Saudi Arabia officially stated that their cumulative bilateral trade since 2020 had exceeded US$20 billion. But the relationship can go far beyond merchandise exchange. Riyadh needs technology, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, medicine, engineering, and expertise for Vision 2030. Canada needs to diversify markets, attract capital, and develop its enormous energy and mineral projects.

There appears an idea much larger than selling oil to each other. Saudi Arabia has enormous investment funds and Canada has projects that need capital. Oil, liquefied natural gas, hydrogen, carbon capture, uranium, critical mining, infrastructure, and technology can become points of convergence. One possesses capital accumulated over decades of energy exports; the other possesses one of the largest natural-resource platforms in the developed world.

The United Nations General Assembly also showed that Canada is seeking precisely this kind of multiple relationship. Carney met in New York with leaders from Chile, Angola, and Jordan and with Sultan Al Jaber, the United Arab Emirates’ Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology. Canada also appeared alongside Brazil and India in the creation of Partners for Multilateralism. This is not a photograph of a country closing itself off. It is a photograph of a country seeking more interlocutors.

A new Carney–Mohammed bin Salman conversation would therefore have plenty of substance on the table. It would not have to begin by asking who aligns with whom. It could begin by asking where they can invest together. Canada has resources and projects. Saudi Arabia has capital and seeks to diversify its economy. Both understand perfectly the economic meaning of an energy reserve, and both have reasons to transform part of that wealth into industries for the coming decades.

“Canada has resources. Saudi Arabia has resources and capital. When two major producers stop looking at each other only as competitors, the conversation can change in scale.”

XV. THE CALCULATOR NO LONGER RUNS AWAY

In Canada III we left behind a rather confused calculator. It looked south, then crossed the Pacific, went back over its numbers, added tariffs, subtracted markets, and finally seemed ready to head for the hills. Canada IV can leave it alone. The account no longer has only two columns.

Now there are the European Union, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and the countries with which Canada is opening new economic relationships. There are energy, critical minerals, food, technology, artificial intelligence, investment, and new buyers. Brazil and India also appear sitting alongside Canada in Partners for Multilateralism, while Ottawa talks with the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

Canada does not even need to wait for possible membership in BRICS to begin. It can trade today with China, India, and Brazil, deepen its relationship with Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, expand business with Mexico, negotiate with Mercosur, and continue taking advantage of its trade agreement with the European Union. If BRICS ever formally appears on Canada’s table, there will be time to place that alternative inside the calculator as well.

The account, moreover, is beginning to show concrete figures. Merchandise trade with the European Union, China, Mexico, Brazil, India, and Saudi Arabia alone totals around US$252 billion annually, using 2025 figures and their approximate conversion into U.S. dollars. And Canadian exports to markets other than the United States increased by around C$56 billion between 2024 and July 2026. Diversification has ceased to be merely a diplomatic word.

Canada possesses oil, gas, uranium, potash, copper, nickel, timber, grains, mining technology, engineering, and industrial expertise. China buys. India grows. Europe imports. Brazil trades. Mexico produces. Saudi Arabia invests. The world is considerably larger than a border.

Perhaps that was the operation missing since Canada III. The calculator was looking for an answer because we had given it only two buttons. Now it has several markets, several currencies, several trade routes, and several tables at which to sit. It can add. It can multiply.

“The Canadian calculator stopped asking whom it should stay with. Now it is too busy calculating how many countries it can trade with.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

· Global Affairs Canada — Quarterly Economic and Trade Report: Spring 2026.

· Natural Resources Canada — The Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy.

· Natural Resources Canada — Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy: A Whole-of-Government Approach, 2025.

· Natural Resources Canada — Horizontal Initiative: Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy, 2026–27 Departmental Plan.

· Government of Canada — Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy.

· Global Affairs Canada — Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP): Canada and the Asia-Pacific.

Mauricio Herrera Kahn