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By Faramarz Tamanna
CIPS Policy Report, February 2026

At a glance…

• This policy paper is grounded in the core assumption that Canada’s external economic environment, and the international order, has entered a phase of structural and enduring transformation.
• Under these conditions, diversification is no longer an optional policy choice; it has become a strategic necessity for survival, resilience, sovereignty and the preservation of independent decision-making, and arguably the only viable path for sustaining Canada’s position in an increasingly complex international environment.
• The author argues that President Trump is neither the first American leader to adopt a hardline approach toward trade with Canada, nor is he likely to be the last among current or future U.S. leaders to do so. Consequently, any new Canadian policy designed to manage tariff-related crises must be guided by a long-term strategic lens rather than short-term crisis management.
• Written in direct response to U.S. tariff wars, this policy paper proposes a three-circle framework that offers a realistic, layered, and national-interest-driven framework for strengthening Canada’s economic resilience and strengthening its strategic and political capacity.
• This framework has three circles:
  • The first circle focuses on deepening alliances and recalibrating engagement strategies with politically aligned and leading economic powers that have remained relatively insulated from U.S. tariff wars (such as Japan and Australia).
  • The second circle emphasizes expanding partnerships with wealthy and high-capacity markets in the Gulf region and East Asia+3 (ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] plus South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong).
  • The third circle entails a managed and cautious engagement with China, framed through a “Four Chinas” approach, strictly centered on economic and commercial interests while simultaneously limiting political, security, and strategic spillover effects.
• The three-circle framework is designed to complement, not replace, existing Canadian foreign-policy approaches and does not conflict with prior frameworks such as the Indo-Pacific Strategy.
• Finally, this policy paper is not based solely on official trade and investment data or desk-based analysis. Rather, it draws on a combination of long-term academic research, policy experience, and sustained engagement with fragile and emerging economies across South, East and West Asia.

Faramarz Tamanna is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and a Research Associate at the Centre for International Policy Studies (CIPS) and served as Visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa. He also serves as a Part-Time Professor at Saint Paul University in Ottawa. Prior to his academic appointments in Canada, Tamanna held senior academic and policy positions in Afghanistan. He served as Professor, President of the University of Afghanistan, and Director General of the Center for Strategic Studies at the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this capacity, he led the core team responsible for drafting Afghanistan’s Foreign Policy Strategy, providing him with direct experience in high-level policy formulation and strategic planning. His research and professional expertise focus on Afghanistan and regional politics, foreign policy analysis, security studies, and international relations, with a particular emphasis on the intersection between academic research and practical policy design. Tamanna is the author of five books and numerous scholarly and policy publications in these fields. Email: [email protected]