A “Friends-Only” Foreign Policy: The Costs of Canada’s New Approach

Security Dilemma

Canada’s post-2022 turn toward “friendshoring,” defined as prioritizing diplomatic and economic relations with like-minded democracies, reflects a desire to shield itself from growing international competition. Former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland captured this outlook in 2022 when she urged liberal democracies to rely economically on each other and isolate “muscular dictatorships” (Brown & Novovic, 2022). The logic is that by cutting ties with adversarial regimes like China, Russia and Iran, Canada and its allies can deny resources to rivals and avoid dependencies that could be exploited (Atkins, 2022). Friendshoring promises to prevent democracies from enriching the very regimes that threaten their existence and to immunize allies against economic blackmail by hostile states. In theory, a coalition of trusted friends would be safer and more resilient than a world of entanglement with non-aligned states.

Yet international security is rarely so simple. Critics warn that hardening alliances along ideological lines can aggravate the classic security dilemma, where one side’s defensive strategy spurs others to respond in kind, leaving everyone less secure. By framing global politics as democracies versus autocracies, friendshoring encourages a binary, zero-sum mentality reminiscent of the Cold War (Sookman, 2024). Even voices in Beijing have cautioned that returning to a “friend-or-foe” mindset presents a danger to international cooperation and peace  (Hammond, 2023). In other words, if Canada and its Western partners treat certain countries exclusively as enemies to be isolated, those countries will inevitably view the West as implacably hostile, a recipe for escalating tensions. Moreover, friendshoring’s worldview ignores the complex system of global governance. Most countries are neither perfect liberal democracies nor rogue dictatorships; oftentimes, they fall somewhere along the spectrum (Brown & Novovic, 2022). The perceived black-and-white portrait of friendshoring glosses over the vast middle ground of states that do not neatly fit into either extreme. By prioritizing an exclusive club of liberal democracies, Canada and the West risk ceding influence over the non-aligned majority of states, many in the Global South, who resent being forced to choose sides. Such an approach complicates the efforts of Canadian diplomacy to engage regions like Africa and may end up undermining global peace efforts. In a multipolar era, binary thinking can alienate potential partners and reduce diplomatic agility.

Alliance Fragility

Alliances that are built purely on shared values can also prove fragile when the interests of countries shift. Such rifts occurred in the Western alliance even during the Cold War (France quitting NATO’s command in 1966;  US rapprochement with China in 1970s). And today, not all Western states agree on every issue. For example, many European allies resist a full decoupling from China despite US pressure, while Europe has recently struggled to maintain US security guarantees against Russia (Garcia-Herrero & Vasselier, 2024). Overreliance on ideological solidarity may backfire if a key partner’s politics change or if economic pain erodes domestic support for a certain strategy. Canada’s own interests may diverge from those of bigger allies. For instance, Ottawa’s economic stake in China or desire for Middle East markets might clash with hard-line US positions. The current US administration is less committed to alliances (and more transactional in approach) which has left Canada’s friendshoring strategy in the lurch. In short, today’s friend can become tomorrow’s outlier, and a policy predicated on enduring ideological blocs offers little flexibility in a fluid multipolar world.

Fragmentation of Global Security Architectures

A divided world risks hardening into political and military blocs, eroding the cooperative architectures that have (imperfectly) underpinned global security since 1945. During the post-Cold War era, forums like the G20, United Nations Security Council, and various arms control regimes were predicated on a degree of East-West collaboration. Today, those mechanisms are fraying (Firmin et al., 2025). If Canada and its partners systematically decouple from China, Russia, and Iran in critical issues, it could bring about a new era of bloc-to-bloc confrontation.

Fragmentation undermines cooperative governance on global issues that no single bloc can solve alone. Climate change offers a glaring example. Western democracies cannot halt global warming without cooperating with major emitters like China. But a friendshoring mindset weakens global climate cooperation (Moore, 2024). The same goes for pandemics, nuclear non-proliferation, or financial stability. By severing or limiting ties to minimal levels with unfriendly states, the West forfeits leverage in multilateral fora and may even incentivize rival institutions.

Also, Russia and China have increasingly turned to non-Western groupings (BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, etc.) to coordinate their own agendas (Soong, 2025). A slow erosion of universal frameworks in favour of competitive parallel structures is evident: US-led initiatives on one side and China/Russia-led ones on the other. For instance, Russia’s expulsion from the G8 and extensive Western sanctions after 2014 and 2022 were meant to punish Moscow’s aggression – but they also removed opportunities for dialogue and incentivized Russia to create new non-Western institutions. International law and norms suffer when great powers stop engaging each other. From Canada’s vantage point, a fractured world order constrains its security options. As a middle power, Canada has historically relied on strong international institutions and norms to amplify its influence (Lang, 2019). Friendshoring may protect Canada in the short term by deepening ties with the US and Europe; but if it contributes to a breakdown of global regimes (trade, arms control, etc.), Canada’s long-term security is put at risk. For example, if the nuclear powers are split into antagonistic camps, arms control talks could collapse entirely, removing the guardrails that prevent arms races. Already, Russia’s war in Ukraine and NATO’s response have effectively frozen dialogue on strategic arms reduction. Similarly, if UN cooperation gives way to veto-wielding blocs, peacekeeping and conflict mediation efforts that Canada supports may stall.

Geoeconomic Weaponization

Friendshoring is not just a passive realignment of states; it has real ramifications, especially when trade is used as a weapon. Treating economic ties as an arm of security policy invites adversaries to do the same, fueling an action-reaction cycle of escalation akin to the classic security dilemma. Canada’s friendshoring push is part of a broader Western strategy to de-risk or outright cut off rival states economically for strategic ends. But such moves provoke countermeasures that can significantly affect the initiators.

Take, for example, the unfolding tit-for-tat between Washington and Beijing. In 2022–2023, the US restricted China’s access to advanced semiconductors and encouraged allies to make their critical supply chains for chips, batteries, and minerals more independent. China retaliated by curbing exports of its own choke-point materials. In July 2023, Beijing announced export controls on gallium and germanium – metals vital to semiconductor and defence industries – citing national security concerns (Lv & Munroe, 2024). By December 2024, these restrictions escalated to an outright ban on sales of those minerals to the US, alongside tight quotas on other inputs like graphite. This move was explicitly framed as a response to US tech sanctions (Lv & Munroe, 2024). As a result, Western industries now face new vulnerabilities even as they try to reduce current issues. A White House spokesperson admitted China’s move underscores the importance of diversifying supply chains away from China (Pamuk & Shalal, 2020), but each round of reciprocations between the US and China puts downward pressure on international trade. Analysts warn that Beijing could target additional critical minerals next, and Washington, in turn, is contemplating further restrictions (Matthews, 2025). The friendshoring weapon, once unsheathed, can lead to a spiral in which each side races to secure resources and cut off the other, heightening the risk of escalatory economic warfare.

Russia’s case is even starker. After it invaded Ukraine, the West imposed some of the most stringent sanctions in history, essentially cutting Russia out of the global economy (Szyszczak, 2025). The Kremlin hit back in asymmetrical ways by weaponizing its energy and abruptly cutting off natural gas flows to Europe in 2022 (Flanagan et al., 2022). In response, Europe decided to double down on its friendshoring strategy by increasing its import of American and British liquified natural gas, as well as Middle Eastern oil for its energy needs (McWilliams et al., 2025). But this episode revealed a paradox. Decades of trade were supposed to dissuade conflict (the old interdependence theory), yet when war came, that same interdependence became a weapon which inflicted collateral damage. Europe’s energy crisis sent prices soaring worldwide in 2022 (Sun et al., 2024). By 2023, Russia had rerouted much of its oil and gas to non-Western buyers, including China, thus blunting Western leverage (Milov, 2024).

Furthermore, Iran, Russia and others have accelerated efforts to bypass the US dollar system – from trading in yuan and rubles to developing payment networks outside SWIFT (Wade, 2024). Iran’s successful admission to BRICS in 2023, alongside other sanctioned states, is hailed in Tehran as proof that Western “isolation strategy” has failed, as ostracized countries unite in new alliances (Rizvi, 2023). The more the West wields its economic clout as an exclusive club, the more incentive adversaries have to build their own parallel financial order in order to escape Western sanctions. In sum, weaponized friendshoring may, over time, undermine Western dominance by catalyzing counter-coalitions and alternatives – from non-dollar trade pacts to integrated supply networks among autocracies.

Isolation Over Dialogue: Eroding the Diplomatic Toolkit

Perhaps the most profound cost of Canada’s friends-only approach is the lost opportunity for diplomacy and conflict management. By severing engagement with adversaries, Canada is effectively disarming itself of one of the most important tools in statecraft: dialogue. Even during the Cold War, Washington and Moscow maintained backchannels and arms-control talks, recognizing that an enemy you can talk to is less likely to be an enemy you have to fight. Today, however, Ottawa’s adherence to isolating itself from states it doesn’t align with means it has little to no direct communication with Pyongyang, no presence in Tehran, and strained, distrustful ties with Beijing and Moscow. This strategic silence limits Canada’s ability to defuse crises or influence adversarial behaviour except with blunt instruments like sanctions or military posturing.
 
Channels for de-escalation are drying up just when they are most needed. Consider Iran. Since 2012, Canada has had no diplomatic relations with Tehran (Government of Canada, 2012). When Iran and the West nearly stumbled into war in January 2020 after the US killed an Iranian general, Canada had over 500 soldiers in Iraq and dozens of citizens in Iran[1] (Simpson, 2020). Lacking an embassy or direct line to Iran’s government, Ottawa’s ability to communicate or negotiate during that crisis was severely constrained. Total isolation left Canada a with limited options in a conflict that directly affected its citizens (Widerman, 2020).
 
Even in dealing with great powers, Canada loses out by not balancing pressure with engagement. Recent relations with China, for example, have been fraught with crisis and tension resulting in frozen diplomatic contacts, espionage accusations, and tit-for-tat trade restrictions (Department of Finance Canada, 2024; The New York Times, 2025; Tunney, 2024). There is a justified rationale for Canada’s position in response issues like hostage diplomacy and China’s electoral interference (Ljunggren, 2024). However, the massive influence that China carries in international politics means Canada cannot simply tune it out. By focusing only on rallying fellow democracies against Chinese coercion, Canada has reduced its bilateral diplomatic leverage with Beijing to near zero (Pedersen-Macnab, 2024). It has also arguably reduced its relevance in regional Asian diplomacy; other middle powers like France or Australia have managed high-level dialogues and even cooperation with Beijing on climate and regional stability despite their own frictions with China (Albanese & Qiang, 2024; Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs (France), 2025; Xinhua, 2025a, 2025b). The risk is that Canada becomes a peripheral player in managing China’s rise, with no ability to moderate Beijing’s behaviour through dialogue or credibly convey redlines outside of a US-led context. Should a Canada-China flashpoint occur (say, another Canadian is detained in China, or a naval encounter in the Pacific), the absence of cultivated diplomatic channels will make resolution harder.

Conclussion

Friendshoring as doctrine sidelines diplomacy in favour of moralistic distancing. It may feel principled for Canada to cut off contacts with regimes that flout international norms. But diplomatic engagement is not a favour to the other side; it is an instrument of Canadian interests. Dialogue does not mean approval. If Canada isn’t in the room with the likes of China or Russia, it cannot influence outcomes on issues from Arctic security to cyber governance, which will proceed with or without Western input. Over time, a stance of strategic isolation can lead to strategic irrelevance. Adversaries simply talk to each other or to more pragmatic actors, creating facts on the ground that Canada and its friends will have to react to from the outside.

Footnotes

[1] Tragically, many died when Iran accidentally shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, mistaking the civilian flight for a US missile (Fassihi, 2020).

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