TORONTO — Former central bank chief Mark Carney was sworn in as Canada’s prime minister on Friday, taking over at what he has called “a time of great peril” as the country faces a trade war with the United States and annexation of Canada.
Carney won the Liberal leadership contest Sunday in a landslide. He is expected to call a snap election in the next 10 days to capitalize on his party’s resurgence in a tight race with the Conservatives.
Carney has no political experience. He ascended to power in a Liberal Party leadership race that was organized after Justin Trudeau — facing the loss of his top lieutenant, a caucus revolt and cratering poll numbers — announced his intention to resign as party leader and prime minister on Jan. 6.
Since his victory on Sunday, Carney has met with Trudeau and several top officials, including the head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada’s chief of the defense staff and the country’s ambassador to the United States.
On Wednesday, he visited a steel factory in Hamilton, Ontario, as Canada slapped retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of U.S. goods. The move came after Trump escalated a trade war by levying 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum. He has promised more tariffs on April 2.
Carney called the tariffs “unjustified” and said he supports the use of dollar-for-dollar retaliation. He said Wednesday that he would meet with Trump to discuss trade when there is “respect for Canadian sovereignty.”
“The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country,” he said in his victory speech on Sunday. “ … If they succeeded, they would destroy our way of life. … Canada never, ever will be part of America in any way, shape or form.”
Carney, a former Goldman Sachs banker and proponent of green investing, was the governor of the Bank of Canada during the global financial crisis and the head of the Bank of England during Britain’s divorce from the European Union.
His experience navigating that upheaval is key to his pitch that he is the leader the country needs as it faces a generational crisis: A U.S. president taking a wrecking ball to the free-trade deal at the heart of U.S.-Canada ties and threatening to use “economic” force to annex its northern neighbor.
“The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First state,” Trump said in a social media post this week. “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.”
Trump and his aides have offered myriad — and, at times, conflicting — justifications for the tariffs.
Few here believe they are about fentanyl, as he initially claimed. Less than 1 percent of fentanyl seized by U.S. border agents at the land border in the 2024 fiscal year was confiscated at or near the northern border.
“The only constant in this unjustifiable trade war seems to be President Trump’s talks of annexing our country through economic coercion,” Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said his week.
In a Feb. 3 call with Trudeau, the president said he had in front of him a document outlining a list of grievances with Canada, said a senior government official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Trump mentioned previously uncontroversial treaties, the official said, including the 1908 treaty finalizing the U.S.-Canada border and a deal regulating flood control and hydroelectric power in the Columbia River, which flows from British Columbia to the Pacific Northwest.
In one call with Trudeau, Trump also asked if Canada was part of NORAD, the joint U.S.-Canada command created during the Cold War to defend the continent against Soviet aggression. When Trudeau replied that it was, the official said Trump moved on.
Canadian officials have said that their U.S. interlocutors say that even they don’t know what Trump will ultimately do and that they have not been able to articulate to them what more they want Canada to end the trade war.
François Philippe-Champagne, Canada’s industry minister, told reporters on Thursday that he believed a change in prime minister could offer an opportunity to “reset” U.S.-Canada
“[Carney] knows a lot more about the nuts and bolts of government finance probably than any elected official that Canada has ever had,” he told The Washington Post. “I think Carney’s personality is well-suited to trying to negotiate a satisfactory resolution.”
Trudeau had sought to arrange one last call with Trump before the end of his time as prime minister, but the call did not materialize, a senior Canadian government official said.
A federal election must be held by the end of October, but Carney is expected to call one shortly.
At the start of the year, the Liberals trailed Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives by 20 points. Trudeau’s resignation, coupled with Trump’s return to the White House, have helped the Liberals nearly close that gap. Some polls show Canadians trust Carney more than Poilievre to handle Trump.
Poilievre provides a stark contrast to Carney. He is a lifelong politician and a populist with a combative, caustic style and a penchant for short, snappy slogans. Carney is a measured technocrat and political neophyte.
In his victory speech Sunday, Carney previewed his attacks on Poilievre, casting him as similar to Trump and “the type of lifelong politician … who worships at the altar of the free market despite never having made a payroll himself.”
“Donald Trump thinks he can weaken us with his plan to divide and conquer,” he said. “Pierre Poilievre’s plan will leave us divided and ready to be conquered. Because a person who worships at the altar of Donald Trump will kneel before him, not stand up to him.”
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