Canada’s next Prime Minister promises to fight Trump’s tariffs

Mark Carney, soon to become Canada’s new prime minister, is a two-time central banker and crisis fighter about to face his biggest challenge of all: steering Canada through Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The Liberals announced Carney as Justin Trudeau’s successor on Sunday after party members voted in a nominating contest. Trudeau resigned in January, facing low approval ratings after nearly a decade in office.

The 59-year-old Carney is a political outsider who has never held office, which would, in normal times, have killed his candidacy in Canada. But distance from Trudeau and a high-profile banking career played to his advantage, and Carney argues he is the only person prepared to handle Trump.

“I know how to manage crises … in a situation like this, you need experience in terms of crisis management, you need negotiating skills,” Carney said during a leadership debate late last month.

“There’s someone who’s trying to weaken our economy,” he said of Trump, spurring loud boos at the party gathering. “He’s attacking Canadian workers, families, and businesses. We can’t let him succeed.”

“This won’t be business as usual,” Carney added. “We will have to do things that we haven’t imagined before, at speeds we didn’t think possible.”

In this regard, he argues Canada must fight Trump’s tariffs with dollar-for-dollar retaliation and diversify trading relations in the medium term. Moreover, he is determined to maintain Trudeau’s C$30 billion of retaliatory tariffs on the United States.

“My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect,” Carney said.

The prospect of a fresh start for the Liberal Party under Carney, combined with Trump’s tariffs and his repeated taunts to annex Canada as the 51st U.S. state, led to a remarkable revival of Liberal fortunes.

In the next election, which must be held by October 20, the Liberals will face off against the official opposition Conservatives, whose leader, Pierre Poilievre, is a career politician with little international exposure.