Carney aims for global leadership role against Trump after Canada election win

By Rod Nickel

OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney completed a comeback victory for the governing Liberals in Monday's election, positioning himself for a global role as a champion of multilateralism against U.S. President Donald Trump's more protectionist policies.

The first person to lead two G7 central banks has the experience to earn immediate international credibility, experts say. Carney's tough words for Trump during the campaign have been closely watched in other parts of the world.

"Canada is ready to take a leadership role in building a coalition of like-minded countries who share our values," Carney said on April 3 in Ottawa. "We believe in international cooperation. We believe in the free and open exchange of goods, services and ideas. And if the United States no longer wants to lead, Canada will."

Carney's Liberals beat the Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre, whose slogan "Canada First" and sometimes acerbic style evoked comparisons with Trump that may have cost him the election. The Conservatives for months had held a wide lead in the polls that evaporated after Trump slapped tariffs on Canada and threatened to annex the country. Canadians are shunning U.S. goods and trips in response.

While Carney remains prime minister, his Liberals appeared to win only a minority of seats in the House of Commons, making the government more fragile and dependent on smaller parties to stay in power.

Australia holds an election on May 3, and the major parties have closely watched the polling surge towards Carney, Australian political strategists said. As in Canada, voter concern over the global fallout from Trump's policies has tilted support toward the center-left Labor Party.

Former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson, who knew Carney when he worked at the Finance Ministry, said Carney is Canada's best-equipped prime minister since the 1960s, given his experience leading the Bank of England and Bank of Canada.

"He goes in extremely well-prepared, with a superb Rolodex, and people will take his call and look to him because their challenges are economic right now," he said.

Carney will likely start by expanding Canadian trade with Europe, Australia and Asian democracies such as Japan, Robertson said, blunting some of the economic damage from newly imposed U.S. tariffs on cars, steel and aluminum.

'DIFFICULT TIGHTROPE'

Fortifying Canada's economy is expected to be Carney's immediate priority, including by advancing infrastructure projects to make Canada less dependent on the United States, which buys 90% of Canada's oil exports.

Leading the smallest G7 nation, Carney will then need to muster his global coalition "without waving a giant red flag in front of Donald Trump," said Roland Paris, a former adviser to ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and now professor of international affairs at University of Ottawa.

"It will be a difficult tightrope or balancing act for him," Paris said. "He and Canada have an interest in coordinating with other like-minded countries, but without necessarily setting up Canada as the organizer of an opposition. Why turn Canada into that kind of target?"

Paris said Carney's calm demeanor and financial experience may elicit a more constructive response from Trump than the president directed at Trudeau, whom he belittled as "governor."

Robertson, a senior adviser at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute think tank, expects Carney to try to work collaboratively with Trump, possibly as early as the June G7 Leaders' Summit in Alberta, where he predicted Carney may arrange a trade meeting with Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Carney has promised to speed up military spending and reduce reliance on the U.S. for defense procurement, and to work with the European Union's proposed 800-billion-euro defense fund.

Carney, however, is unlikely to muster the influence of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel or French President Emmanuel Macron, said Chris Hernandez-Roy, deputy director of the Americas program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"The erosion of Canada's standing in the world will prevent him from being a true leader of the Western world," he said, noting the country's underfunded military and stagnating economy.

Canada holds the presidency of the G7 this year, which adds to Carney's platform, however.

TRUMP 'WRECKING BALL'

Carney's win, while heartening for other global center-left politicians, is unlikely to provide a template for others to replicate because Trump's musings about annexing neighboring Canada made him a unique existential threat, Robertson said.

But in Australia's election, analysts said voter dislike of Trump is hurting centre-right opposition leader Peter Dutton, who until last month had been in a close race.

    Most polls now show rival Labor narrowly winning, or forming a minority government with the support of independents.

    "Trump has been a wrecking ball through the conservative coalition here and more broadly across the world. He has really dealt the conservative movement a blow by the way he has gone about his policies in Washington,” said Andrew Carswell, former press secretary to conservative Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who lost office in the previous Australian election.

In Hungary, too, leader Viktor Orban, who has praised Trump, faces the strongest opposition in years as the economy falters and risks worsening as Europe confronts Trump's aggressive trade policy.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose Labour Party Carney endorsed in 2023, has sought to pursue a more conciliatory approach to Trump, but has been unable to improve his poor favorability ratings.

“If Labour are looking to restore their standing with the public in general, a tougher stance on Trump might help toward that. He's not a popular guy: the tariffs, the trade war, all of this, his position on Ukraine, all go down terribly with the British public,” said Patrick English, director of political analytics at pollster YouGov.

“But then on the other side ... in Canada, it's much more cut and dried. If you're in favour of Donald Trump in Canada, you are pretty much anti-Canadian.”

The lesson Carney's win provides may apply more to parties on the right than on the left, outside of the U.S., said Richard Johnston, a retired political science professor at University of British Columbia: "Get rid of any hint of MAGA."   

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in OttawaAdditional reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney and Alistair Smout in London, editing by Deepa Babington)