Carney set to sign two Asian trade deals on nine-day, four-summit trip that tests his middle-power pitch

Résumé détaillé

The prime minister has meetings in Ireland, the Phillipines, Cambodia and China to expand markets for Canadian exports and strengthen security alliances.

DUBLIN — Somewhere during the next nine days, as he travels across two oceans and two continents to meet with leaders from 132 countries, Mark Carney will sign a pair of potentially important free-trade agreements and, with any luck, mend Canada’s strained trade ties with the U.S., and call it a day.

The man who, friends say, needs less shut-eye than most people is nothing if not relentlessly focused on what “we can control.” So, he continues his quest to expand markets for Canadian exports to buffer the hit from the U.S.-led global trade war and exhort middle powers to strengthen rules-based trade and security alliances.

However, on this diplomatic odyssey, not everything is in Carney’s control.

That starts with the timing. The whirlwind of summits is a function of a calendar that jams international meetings into the fall. Coincidentally, several are being hosted in Asia this year.

Then there are all the competing international and domestic political agendas at play and how they will intersect, or not, with Carney’s.

In Dublin Thursday for a meeting of the European Political Community (a 43-country grouping broader than the European Union), Ukraine and European security are front and centre, with America’s backing of Ukraine more in doubt than ever. Carney has had a lot of face time lately with EU executive leaders, but not with leaders of EU member states, some of whom, like Germany, are not keen on “associate EU membership” status for Canada.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced Canada will pursue “associate membership” in the

Others are wary of how sweet a deal the EU will cut Canada. That includes the U.K., which has its own post-Brexit arrangement with the bloc, as well as Norway and Iceland, which have economic associations with it. EU aspirants such as Moldova are also watching closely.

In Manila Saturday for a meeting of Southeast Asian nations known as ASEAN, global trade tensions and supply chain crunches are the main agenda at a time when U.S.

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