Carney aims for global leadership role against Trump after Canada election win
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Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney’s tough words for Mr Trump during the campaign have been closely watched in other parts of the world.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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OTTAWA – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney completed a comeback victory
The first person to lead two G-7 central banks has the experience to earn immediate international credibility, experts say.
Mr Carney’s tough words for Mr Trump during the campaign have been closely watched in other parts of the world.
“Canada is ready to take a leadership role in building a coalition of like-minded countries who share our values,” Mr Carney said on April 3 in Ottawa.
“We believe in international cooperation. We believe in the free and open exchange of goods, services and ideas. And if the United States no longer wants to lead, Canada will,” he said.
Mr Carney’s Liberals beat the Conservatives, led by Mr Pierre Poilievre, whose slogan “Canada First” and sometimes acerbic style evoked comparisons with Mr Trump that may have cost him the election
The Conservatives for months held a wide lead in the polls that evaporated after Mr Trump slapped tariffs on Canada and threatened to annex the country. Canadians are shunning US goods and trips in response.
While Mr Carney remains prime minister, his Liberals appeared to win only a minority of seats in the House of Commons, making the government more fragile and dependent on smaller parties to stay in power.
Australia holds an election on May 3, and the major parties have closely watched the polling surge towards Mr Carney, Australian political strategists said.
As in Canada, voter concern
Former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson, who knew Mr Carney when he worked at the Finance Ministry, said Mr Carney is Canada’s best-equipped prime minister since the 1960s, given his experience leading the Bank of England and Bank of Canada.
“He goes in extremely well-prepared, with a superb Rolodex, and people will take his call and look to him because their challenges are economic right now,” he said.
Mr Carney will likely start by expanding Canadian trade with Europe, Australia and Asian democracies such as Japan, Mr Robertson said, blunting some of the economic damage from newly imposed US tariffs on cars, steel and aluminium.
‘Difficult tightrope’
Fortifying Canada’s economy is expected to be Mr Carney’s immediate priority, including by advancing infrastructure projects to make Canada less dependent on the US, which buys 90 per cent of Canada’s oil exports.
Leading the smallest G-7 nation, Mr Carney will then need to muster his global coalition “without waving a giant red flag in front of Donald Trump”, said Professor Roland Paris, a former adviser to former prime minister Justin Trudeau and now a don in international affairs at the University of Ottawa.
“It will be a difficult tightrope or balancing act for him,” Prof Paris said. “He and Canada have an interest in coordinating with other like-minded countries, but without necessarily setting up Canada as the organiser of an opposition. Why turn Canada into that kind of target?“
Prof Paris said Mr Carney’s calm demeanour and financial experience may elicit a more constructive response from Mr Trump than the president directed at Mr Trudeau, whom he belittled as “governor”.
Mr Robertson, a senior adviser at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute think tank, expects Mr Carney to try to work collaboratively with Mr Trump, possibly as early as the June G-7 Leaders’ Summit in Alberta, where he predicted Mr Carney may arrange a trade meeting with Mr Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Mr Carney has promised to speed up military spending and reduce reliance on the US for defence procurement, and to work with the European Union’s proposed €800 billion (S$1.2 trillion) defence fund.
Mr Carney, however, is unlikely to muster the influence of former German chancellor Angela Merkel or French President Emmanuel Macron, said Mr Chris Hernandez-Roy, deputy director of the Americas programme at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
“The erosion of Canada’s standing in the world will prevent him from being a true leader of the Western world,” he said, noting the country’s underfunded military and stagnating economy.
Canada holds the presidency of the G-7 in 2025, which adds to Mr Carney’s platform, however.
Trump ‘wrecking ball’
Mr Carney’s win, while heartening for other global center-left politicians, is unlikely to provide a template for others to replicate because Mr Trump’s musings about annexing neighbouring Canada
But in Australia’s election, analysts said voter dislike of Mr Trump is hurting centre-right opposition leader Peter Dutton, who until March had been in a close race.
Most polls now show rival Labor narrowly winning, or forming a minority government with the support of independents.
“Trump has been a wrecking ball through the conservative coalition here and more broadly across the world. He has really dealt the conservative movement a blow by the way he has gone about his policies in Washington,” said Mr Andrew Carswell, former press secretary to conservative Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison, who lost office in the previous Australian election.
In Hungary, too, leader Viktor Orban, who has praised Mr Trump, faces the strongest opposition in years as the economy falters and risks worsening as Europe confronts Mr Trump’s aggressive trade policy.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose Labour Party Mr Carney endorsed in 2023, has sought to pursue a more conciliatory approach to Mr Trump, but has been unable to improve his poor favourability ratings.
“If Labour are looking to restore their standing with the public in general, a tougher stance on Trump might help toward that. He’s not a popular guy: The tariffs, the trade war, all of this, his position on Ukraine, all go down terribly with the British public,” said Mr Patrick English, director of political analytics at pollster YouGov.
“But then on the other side… in Canada, it’s much more cut and dried. If you’re in favour of Donald Trump in Canada, you are pretty much anti-Canadian.”
The lesson Mr Carney’s win provides may apply more to parties on the right than on the left, outside of the US, said retired political science professor Richard Johnston at University of British Columbia: “Get rid of any hint of MAGA.” REUTERS
