Canada's Liberal Party looked doomed. Then Trump's tariff war revived it. | Opinion
Federal elections are looming in Canada, where Trump's MAGA style of politics was popular – until the tariff war started.
The Democratic Party in America seems absolutely hapless these days in resisting the worst urges of President Donald Trump in the opening weeks of his second term as president.
But progressives over our northern border in Canada are successfully exploiting Trump's return to the White House, where he threatened for weeks to levy tariffs on imports from across the border and then implemented them Tuesday before pulling back temporarily on some of them Thursday.
Trump's penchant for attacking allies like Canada and Mexico while cozying up to geopolitical foes like Russia has inadvertently rescued the Liberal Party of Canada, which looked to be on its way out of power until he started talking.
That comes at a steep cost to the Conservative Party of Canada – with a heap of irony on top – since it had adopted Trump's style of populist rhetoric and tactics that helped him win November's presidential election.
That was popular in Canada until Trump started casting the American ally and top trading partner as an economic foe he might just take over. "Canada First!" – the Conservative Party motto cribbed from Trump's MAGA playbook – is suddenly and swiftly out of fashion.
Federal elections are looming in Canada. Nik Nanos, a Canadian pollster, put it to me this way: "Donald Trump is going to be the uninvited guest in the next Canadian election, and may very well influence who Canadians decide to pick to lead Canada in dealing with the Trump administration."
Trump's MAGA rule has been a gift to Trudeau
Republicans in America, and their constituents, know that Trump's tariffs on Canada are going to damage an economy Trump campaigned on repairing.
The Liberal Party and The Conservative Party in Canada both see the U.S. tariffs as a threat to their own economy.
Trump's clownish claims that he wants Canada to become America's 51st state further inflame those tensions.
Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister since 2015, was a drag on his Liberal Party until he announced his resignation in early January. He was hounded out of office for issues that echo back to Trump's win last year: inflation, a housing crisis and concerns about immigration.
Trudeau's impending exit – his party will select a new leader Sunday and then decide when he steps down – combined with Trump's return to power and fetish for tariffs were a powerful one-two punch hitting the Conservative Party.
The U.S. president finally recognized his impact on Canada's next election on Wednesday. Trump posted on social media that he spoke with Trudeau about the tariffs and surmised that the Canadian prime minister "is trying to use this issue to stay in power."
Then Trump on Thursday hit pause for one month on some of the 25% tariffs he had slammed on Canada and Mexico. He posted that he respected that country's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, and would honor an economic agreement he signed with Mexico and Canada in his first term.
In a separate post, Trump took another shot at Trudeau, accusing him of using the tariff dispute for political gain.
Let's review: Trump keeps threatening to violate a deal he negotiated with Canada and Mexico in 2020, then kind of backing off, then using the international economic controversy to attack American allies.
The driving message here: Trump is erratic and hostile for no discernable reason other than that is just his personality.
Nanos called Trump "an accelerant" who shifted the focus of the next election from who could repair Canada to who could resist Trump. The Conservative Party at the end of 2024 had a 27 percentage point lead over the Liberal Party and appeared ready to seize a huge majority in the House of Commons, according to Nanos Research.
And now? The pollster said that lead "has completely evaporated," and that while the Conservatives are still ahead in the polling, the lead rests within the margin of error.
"I think the next election in Canada is going to be a wild ride because Canadian politicians will be fighting each other, and then they'll also be fighting Trump at the same time," Nanos said.
Canadians are rallying to fight back against Trump's tariffs
The next leader of the Liberal Party could soon call what is known as a snap election. Tari Ajadi, an assistant professor of political science at McGill University in Montreal, told me moving fast makes sense for the Liberal Party as the Conservative Party's lead dwindles.
"The Liberals have all of the momentum right now," Ajadi said, suggesting that relations with America amounts to a new and pressing question on the ballot.
Mark Carney, who appears to be leading in the four-candidate field to head the Liberal Party, is a former head of Canada's central bank and of the Bank of England. Ajadi said Carney is "not a great politician." And that's a good thing in this upcoming election. Canada is not looking for a Trump-like personality.
"It appears right now that the Canadians across the country are pivoting towards a technocrat," Ajadi said. "We want someone to handle this. We do not want someone to kind of speak loudly about it."
Canadians, he said, have moved on from a "scarcity mindset" focused on the prices of food and housing and are now zeroed in on Trump's antagonism for their country.
"None of those challenges have gone away, but this appearance of an existential threat to the kind of nation as a whole changes the game entirely," Ajadi said.
Trump's tariff war might be temporary. But Canadians won't forget.
I've been writing about Trump for 20 years, since before he entered politics, back when he ran a casino company known for lapsing in and out of bankruptcy. It's completely on brand for him to strike a deal and then refuse to honor it, in hopes of landing an even better deal.
He hailed in January 2020 the signing of a U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement as a "momentous, historic, and joyous occasion." Now he's gone to economic war with tariffs on Canada and Mexico, even if some of those tariffs get paused.
Trump's economic advisers have been suggesting that the tariffs could be a short-term thing. Trump on Wednesday carved out automobiles from those tariffs for a month, due to economic fears from American carmakers. He'll probably still be tinkering with the economies of our closest allies as you read this.
Which had me asking: Could Trump erase his antagonism of Canada just as quickly as he inflamed it, by just walking all this back while claiming some sort of victory?
The McGill assistant professor of political science doesn't see that happening. Trump, Ajadi said, engaging in "a fundamental breach of trust is going to have general consequences for a generation" in Canada. America no longer looks like a reliable ally. Canada has had enough.
So while Trump bedevils Democrats in America, he emboldens Liberals in Canada. And they seem more than ready to punch back at Trump. The Democratic Party should watch and learn.
Follow Paste BN columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan