Mark Carney, a Europhile liberal, won Canada's federal elections — and has US President Donald Trump largely to thank for it. Though Carney's grip on power will be tenuous, at best, it marks a turnaround for his Liberal Party.
Canada was flirting with electing a Trump-like leader of its own, the opposition Conservative's Pierre Poilievre, but Carney was able to leverage his public criticism of Trump to ride a wave of souring US sentiment.
“This is a real wake-up call for Canadians, who acknowledge they cannot always count on their southern neighbour,” David Plunkett, Canada's former ambassador to the European Union, told The Parliament.
Carney's win reads as good news from the EU, which may find its other transatlantic ally to be a valuable partner when confronting an aggressive and unpredictable United States. European leaders roundly embraced Carney's victory.
It could also serve as a roadmap for their own electoral prospects. EU leaders have struggled with the best way to respond to Trump, oscillating between flattery and tough talk. Carney’s election shows that the latter can pay off with voters.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has avoided criticising Trump directly, even as the White House gives Brussels the cold shoulder. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer — who has tried to cultivate a strong relationship with Trump in an effort to avoid the worst of US tariffs — swerved past questions on Trump’s threats to annex Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth.
“Canada may be a sign of citizens turning away from populist politics,” said Vesko Garčević, a former Montenegro ambassador to NATO. “This result may actually give the push to traditional European parties to work better and harder with their electorate.”
The other transatlantic alliance
Canada and the EU have the motive and the means to forge deeper ties, jointly countering rising economic nationalism and global fragmentation.
“Canada is a natural ally for the EU in building a broad coalition of countries that supports the rule of law in trade,” Peter Chase, a former vice president of the US Chamber of Commerce and senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told The Parliament. “They need to work together to rejuvenate the WTO against both the systemic subsidisation and overcapacity in China and Trump’s callous shredding of America’s international commitments.”
The World Trade Organization, which the US helped bring into existence in 1995, is supposed to be the final arbiter of global trade disputes.
In 2023, Canada-EU goods and services trade was worth €120 billion, with a surplus in the EU's favour. The trade relationship is built on the bilateral Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) , signed in 2017, which has increased EU-Canada trade by 65%. Carney, who was the head of the UK's central bank during the Brexit upheaval, will be eager to maintain that trade trajectory.
Despite the strengthening economic relationship, it pales in comparison to the EU's trade with the US, which is ten times bigger. Canada and the EU have strongly overlapping interests, but will still need to balance their own with maintaining a united front against Trump's belligerence.
“The Trump administration shoots itself so much in the foot that others that are hurt by that are doomed to seek rapprochement to each other,” Dirk De Bièvre, chair of the department of political science at the University of Antwerp, told The Parliament.
In other words, a kind of prisoner's dilemma could take shape as Canada and the EU sit across from Trump at the negotiating table.
“Having a solid agreement with reliable partners I think in this day and age is worth its weight in gold,” Plunkett said.
Canada could look to the EU for help with its auto industry, as it has hit the US with a 25% auto tariff in response to the one it faced from the US. Trump has moved to ease the tariff burden on some importers, but they are still expansive, targeting any vehicle not assembled in the US and sidestepping rules set down by Trump's first-term renegotiation of the NAFTA free trade agreement.
Tariffs on auto parts may start on 3 May.
“Canada also has a fairly unique capability of actually inflicting real pain on the US economy in return,” Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels economics think tank, told The Parliament. “This you can see in many of the industries, particularly in the auto industry, which are deeply interlinked across the border.”
NATO sans US
Defence co-operation between Canada and the EU is expected to grow. Carney’s Liberals have pledged to meet NATO's guideline of spending at least 2% of GDP on national defence.
As US support wavers for both its transatlantic alliance and Ukraine's fight against Russia's full-scale invasion, the incoming Canadian prime minister has echoed Europe’s line about the need to provide for one's own security.
“The EU realises that they need the UK and possibly Canada if they want to plan to support Ukraine even without the US, or even against the US,” Nicholas Williams, a former NATO senior official, told The Parliament. “Canada hasn't stepped up to the mark in terms of defence spending, it has a lot of catching up to do. And unfortunately, Carney will have to focus on his relationship with the US.”
As a result, he added, Canada “will have limited ability to contribute decisively to European security efforts.”
NATO's annual summit will take place in June. It could be an early test of Carney's mettle, as he, Trump and their European counterparts meet face-to-face in The Hague.
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