Canada Liberals announce Mark Carney as Trudeau's successor amid US trade war

Canada selected a new prime minister-elect on Sunday night, as Justin Trudeau’s reign nears a close amid a trade war with the United States.

Canada’s Liberal Party announced that Mark Carney was chosen to succeed Trudeau after party members voted in a nominating contest between four candidates.

Carney is expected to be sworn in sometime this week by the governor general of Canada, a representative in Canada of Britain’s King Charles III.

The newly elected Liberal Party leader is expected to immediately call for an election as early as late April.

Trudeau, who was first elected prime minister in November 2015, announced on Jan. 6 his intention to resign as Liberal Party leader and prime minister once a new party leader is determined through what he said would be “a robust, nationwide, competitive process.”

The candidates for prime minister included Chrystia Freedman, Canada’s longtime deputy prime minister who, until December, served as Trudeau’s finance minister; Frank Baylis, a businessman and former member of the House of Commons; Karina Gould, a member of Parliment, who served in Trudeau’s Cabinet as minister of International Development and minister of Democratic Institutions; and Mark Carney, an economist who served as governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.

Heading into the vote, Carney, who has never held an elected office, had emerged as a front-runner.

Carney, who as governor of the Bank of Canada, is credited with helping to guide the country through the worst of the 2008 financial crisis as governor of the Bank of Canada. Carney has compared President Donald Trump, who has also threatened to make Canada the 51st U.S. state, to a villain in the Harry Potter series.

“When you think about what’s at stake in these ridiculous, insulting comments of the president, of what we could be, I view this as the sort of Voldemort of comments,” the 59-year-old Carney told supporters at an event in Winnipeg last month.

Trudeau initially said he would serve as prime minister until March 24. He will then be replaced by the new Liberal Party leader.

The Canadian Parliament was supposed to begin its new session of 2025 on Jan. 27, but Trudeau had asked the governor general to extend and not start a new session of Parliament until March 24.

“I’m a fighter. Every bone in my body has always told me to fight because I care deeply about Canadians. I care deeply about this country, and I will always be motivated by what is in the best interest of Canadians,” Trudeau said when he announced his plans in early January to resign.

At the time, Trudeau said he believed his resignation would “bring the temperature down” and allow Parliament to reset and get back to work “for Canadians.”

“Parliament needs a reset, I think, needs to calm down a bit and needs to get to work for Canadians,” Trudeau said when answering reporters’ questions following his announcement. “Removing me as the leader who will fight the next election for the party should decrease the polarization that we have right now.”

Support for Trudeau’s party has declined steadily for months, with the Liberals falling in early January to their lowest level of support in years, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

In recent days, Trudeau has emerged as the face of Canada in a trade war that erupted with the United States over 25% tariffs that Trump imposed on products from Canada.

Canada countered by imposing a 25% tariff on goods from the United States, including American orange juice, peanut butter, coffee, appliances, footwear, cosmetics, motorcycles, and certain pulp and paper products.

Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said a second wave of retaliatory tariffs would be suspended after Trump announced on Thursday that he is pausing for a month tariffs on some products from Canada and Mexico.