Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals now have 174 of the 343 seats in the House of Commons and won’t need support from opposition parties to pass legislation after winning three districts that became vacant after last year’s election. File.
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People enter an Elections Canada voting location, in Terrebonne, Quebec, on April 13, 2026.
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US President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to impose a 100% tariff on Canadian goods if Ottawa goes ahead with its trade deal with China.

Prime Minister Mark Carney visited Beijing last week and struck a deal under which Canada will ease tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles that it imposed in tandem with the US in 2024. In exchange, China will lower retaliatory tariffs on key Canadian agricultural products.

If the deal wasn’t enough, Carney’s rousing speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos where he vowed to diversify Canada’s economic partners and reduce dependence on its southern neighbour rattled Trump.

“If Governor Carney thinks he is going to make Canada a “Drop Off Port” for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, using the nickname he placed on Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau.

“China will eat Canada alive, completely devour it, including the destruction of their businesses, social fabric, and general way of life. If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% Tariff against all Canadian goods and products coming into the U.S.A.,” the president added.

Relations between Washington and Ottawa soured after Trump’s returned to the White House last year. The US president has floated the idea of making Canada the 51st US state, besides his threats to annex the Danish territory of Greenland just east of the country. 

Amid sustained pressure from the US, Canada has set an ambitious goal to increase exports to China by 50% by 2030 and Carney has pledged to significantly increase non-US trade in the next ten years. He is reportedly planning a visit to India in the coming months.

In Davos, the PM sharply criticised the Trump policy of employing coercive measures against allies and extolled middle powers to bind closer and resist great power hegemony. His speech drew a rare standing ovation at the gathering and irked Trump, who not only belittled Canada in his address a day later but also withdrew his Board of Peace invitation to Carney.

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Dominic A. LeBlanc is a Canadian lawyer and politician who serves as President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada, Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs and One Canadian Economy, and Minister of Internal Trade. Photo credit: X/@DLeBlancNB

Ottawa:

Mark Carney, the former governor of Canada’s central bank, on Thursday launched his bid to succeed Justin Trudeau as Liberal Party leader and prime minister, immediately becoming a frontrunner in the race.

The 59-year-old Harvard- and Oxford-educated economist kicked off his campaign at a hockey rink in Edmonton, Alberta where he grew up.

“I’m doing this because Canada is the best country in the world, but it still could be even better,” Carney told a crowd of supporters.

Pitching himself as an outsider and an unconventional politician with strong economic chops, he vowed to get the Canadian economy “back on track” and beat back Donald Trump’s tariffs threat.

Carney is expected to go head-to-head with his friend, former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, who is scheduled to announce her leadership bid on Sunday.

Freeland’s surprise resignation in December, after clashing with her boss over how to respond to Trump’s threat to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports, precipitated a political crisis that saw Trudeau last week announce he was quitting too.

Whoever wins the leadership will automatically become prime minister and inherit a party that is 20 points behind the Conservatives led by Pierre Poilievre in the polls. They could also face snap elections as early as March.

A relative unknown to most Canadians, on Thursday Carney immediately went on the offensive against Poilievre, accusing him of putting forward “bad ideas, naive and dangerous ideas.”

At the same time, the former UN special envoy on climate action acknowledged that Canada’s climate measures such as a carbon levy — which Poilievre wants to scrap — have not worked for all Canadians.

Meanwhile, in a recent appearance on “The Daily Show” Carney playfully pushed back at Trump’s unlikely plan for Canada to become the 51st US state, telling host Jon Stewart: “We’re not moving in with you.”

“We can be friends,” he added. “Friends with benefits.”

Stewart responded that he felt like Carney was breaking up with him during the interview.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)