Canada is quietly trying to knit together a large, rules-based trading alternative to counteract what Ottawa describes as growing economic coercion from Washington. Over the weekend Canada formally joined the EU’s “European Security Action” initiative as the first non-European participant, and Ottawa’s envoys are pressing both the European Union and members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans‑Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) to explore deeper trade integration.
The proposal under discussion would not be a single free‑trade treaty overnight, but an architecture that aligns supply chains across two large economic blocs. Canadian officials argue that harmonising rules of origin and introducing cumulation mechanisms between the EU and CPTPP would let manufacturers move goods and parts across continents with lower tariffs and less paperwork, effectively creating a trade zone covering roughly 1.5 billion people.
Ottawa frames the push as practical insurance against the unpredictability of U.S. trade policy. In recent months Washington’s threats to impose tariffs on allies have prompted Canada’s leaders to call on “middle powers” to band together to resist trade coercion. Canada has dispatched its EU representative, John Hannaford, to consult CPTPP capitals in Asia about technical and political appetite for closer ties.
Business groups on both sides of the Atlantic are warming to the idea. Several European trade associations and chambers of commerce have signalled support for origin‑cumulation arrangements as a way to strengthen interconnected supply networks and reduce the friction that comes with layering multiple bilateral deals. Officials stress, however, that any progress is likely to be incremental; negotiating harmonised origin rules among jurisdictions with different industrial structures and regulatory priorities is technically demanding and politically sensitive.
The initiative also carries geopolitical freight. For Ottawa and other proponents, an EU–CPTPP bridge is about more than tariffs: it is a strategic attempt to harden alternative channels of economic cooperation that are less vulnerable to unilateral pressure from a disruptive Washington. For the EU and CPTPP members, the attraction is both market access and a means of enhancing supply‑chain resilience in an era of intensifying great‑power rivalry.
Practical obstacles remain. The EU and CPTPP have varied trade policy histories and divergent standards on agriculture, services and public procurement. Some EU officials say their immediate priority is tangible outcomes that deepen supply‑chain links rather than headline institutional designs. Negotiations launched last year on trade and investment between the EU and the CPTPP will have to move from exploratory dialogue to concrete legal text if the bridge concept is to become operational.
If it advances, the initiative would do more than blunt a particular American threat. It would show how middle powers can leverage multilateral networks to defend an open trading order even as the United States pursues transactional bilateral pressure. That shift would reshape the balance of influence in global trade governance and force Washington to reckon with a more diversified web of economic alliances.