How Trump’s tariff threats may help unseat Canada’s Justin Trudeau

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When he came to power in 2015, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was hailed as a progressive icon, a charismatic leftist with movie star good looks who promised to reform elections, tackle climate change and legalize marijuana. He quickly became one of the world’s best-known political figures, known for agenda-setting liberal policies — and for taking selfies with enraptured fans.

“He was seen as this Canadian rock star,” said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

Nine years later, Trudeau is deeply unpopular at home and fighting for his job amid growing calls that he step down.

Voters blame Trudeau for Canada’s sluggish economy, housing crisis and near-record levels of immigration. For months now, polls have shown that it is highly unlikely that he could lead his Liberal Party to victory in the next election, which is due by Oct. 20 of next year.

The election of Donald Trump last month has made things worse for Trudeau.

Conservatives and even members of his own Liberal Party insist he isn’t doing enough to counter Trump, who has threatened to levy heavy tariffs on imports from Canada, and who has trolled Trudeau in recent weeks by repeatedly describing him as “governor” of a 51st American state.

This week, one of Trudeau’s staunchest allies, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, abruptly resigned over her disagreement with Trudeau’s approach to Trump.

In a sharply worded letter announcing her departure, Freeland accused Trudeau of embracing “costly political gimmicks” instead of directly confronting the U.S. leader and of putting his own interests ahead of the best interests of Canadians.

Freeland’s resignation, part of a recent exodus of Cabinet members, has thrown Trudeau’s government into disarray and prompted fresh demands from members of his caucus and other allied parties that he step down.

At the same time, Canada’s three opposition parties are demanding that Trudeau call new elections.

“Everything is spiraling out of control,” Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party, said Monday. “We simply cannot go on like this.”

The crisis facing Trudeau highlights the geopolitical havoc that Trump has wrought since his election, still weeks before his official return to the White House.

And it speaks to the same anti-incumbent headwinds and economic anxieties that helped doom the Democrats in recent U.S. elections.

“Everything that seemed bright and refreshing about Trudeau in 2015 now looks old and tired,” Bratt said.

Trudeau is the eldest son of the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who led Canada for 15 years beginning in 1968.

The younger Trudeau worked as a teacher before he entered politics. He was just 43 when he toppled the Conservative government of Stephen Harper by mobilizing legions of young voters energized by his promise to bring back social liberalism.

As prime minister, Trudeau legalized marijuana and enacted a national carbon tax that officials say will reduce the country’s emissions by a third by the end of this decade. He also became a prominent liberal counterweight to Trump, who was first elected in 2016.

After Trump banned travel to the U.S. from several Muslim-majority countries in 2017, Trudeau announced that Canada’s doors were open.

“To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith,” he wrote on the social media platform now known as X. “Diversity is our strength.”

Trudeau was largely praised for steering the country through a successful renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, a process that Freeland helmed.

But COVID-19 posed a challenge for Trudeau, with the country’s economic recovery more sluggish than that of the United States.

Recently, Trudeau has come under fire for allowing near-record numbers of migrants into Canada during and after the pandemic in an effort to spur economic growth.

An influx of temporary workers, international students and refugees helped push the country’s population from 38 million to 41 million in three years. Critics say it has increased existing competition for housing, healthcare and education.

Trudeau’s approval ratings continued to drop. Then Trump won reelection.

The incoming U.S. leader announced that on his first day in office he planned to levy a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico unless the countries curbed the flow of undocumented migrants and drugs into the United States.

Though many analysts believe Trump may be using the threat of tariffs as a negotiating tactic before he returns to the White House, the issue has caused deep anxiety in Canada.

It has also prompted a debate about what is the smartest strategy for Canada to deal with the pugnacious American leader: pushing back or taking a more conciliatory approach.

Trudeau appears to have chosen the second option. Last month he flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to dine with the president-elect. Then, in an apparent attempt to appease the incoming U.S. leader, Trudeau’s government announced a plan to beef up security along the U.S. border.

Freeland, on the other hand, has advocated a much tougher approach to Trump, one more in line with the stern response of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

“A division over how to respond to the U.S. is front and center in the rationale for Freeland leaving,” said Christopher Sands, head of the Canada Institute at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington.

Freeland’s resignation on Monday, when she was scheduled to deliver a key address on the country’s budget, “really shook the government,” Sands said. “I think this may hasten the end of the Trudeau government.”

Analysts say there are several possible outcomes for the current political crisis.

Trudeau could be forced by his own party to step down as leader of the Liberals, who would choose a new leader. Freeland is considered a possible pick. The Liberals would eventually have to call a new election, but their hope would be that a new leader at the top would help reduce their likely losses to the Conservatives, whom polls show with a large lead.

Alternatively, Trudeau could call for an election and lead the Liberals to the polls himself. This is what he says he intends to do.

Or the opposition parties in Parliament could introduce a no-confidence vote, which would trigger new elections. But their attempts to do so have so far failed.

Jonathan Malloy, a professor of political science at Carleton University, said it seems Trudeau’s days are numbered. “There’s a lot of pessimism and people are upset at government,” he said.

And Trump calling Canada the 51st state isn’t helping.

“It’s fair to say that Mr. Trump has a knack for finding people’s weak spots,” Malloy said. “And he struck directly at the main one in Canada, which is that the United States just views it as essentially the 51st state.”

Staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in The Times’ Washington bureau contributed to this report.