Canada's Trump Card

With former central banker Mark Carney succeeding Justin Trudeau as prime minister, has the U.S. president met his match in the trade wars?

- KHALEDA RAHMAN

CANADA'S NEW PRIME MINISTER, Mark Carney, has been hailed by experts as a “superb choice” to lead the country through U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war.

A former central banker and political outsider who has never held office, Carney was sworn in on March 14, five days after being elected the governing Liberal Party's leader. He replaces Justin Trudeau, who announced his resignation in January.

“His demonstrated track record leading with experience, judgment and integrity put him in remarkably rarefied air among North American public officials,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the senior associate dean for Leadership Studies at the Yale School of Management, told Newsweek.

However, Carney's credentials have been immediately put to the test over U.S.-Canada relations. These have become strained following Trump's repeated remarks about making the nation the 51st U.S. state and announcements of tariffs of 25 percent and more on many imports from the country—prompting retaliatory levies from Canada.

Trump's tariffs were due to come into effect on February 4, but the president postponed them for a month amid negotiations. Canadian officials said retaliatory tariffs would remain in place. On March 5, Trump further delayed levies on cars made in North America, then six days later said he would double his planned steel and aluminum tariffs to 50 percent for Canada—only to halt the rise hours later. He posted on his social media platform Truth Social: “The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State. This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.”