Canada Prime Minister-elect Mark Carney warns Trump to back off
Canada’s Prime Minister-elect Mark Carney is warning President Donald Trump to back off after scoring a convincing victory in an election driven by north-of-the-border anger over the mushrooming trade war and annexation threats.
In a triumphant victory speech, the Liberal Party leader warned Trump to stop bullying its neighbor and that Canada would never agree to become the 51st state.
“President Trump is trying to break us so America can own us. That will never, ever happen,” Carney told a crowd of cheering supporters late Monday night.
“America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country,” he said. “These are not idle threats.”
Carney warned Trump to stop suggesting Canada should become the 51st U.S. state, calling it an “American betrayal” of its closest ally.
The former central banker vowed to rebuild a Canadian economy that would be less dependent on the United States, which he said had exposed itself as an unreliable political, diplomatic and trading partner.
“We need to do things previously thought impossible at speeds we haven’t seen in generations,” he said.
Carney was set to be named the new prime minister, but his party fell short Tuesday of winning an outright majority in Parliament, and the party will have to seek help from other another, smaller party.
The vote-counting agency Elections Canada has processed nearly all ballots in what turned out to be a razor-close race that will leave the Liberals three seats short of a majority. Recounts are expected in some districts.
Trump, who insists he is not joking about annexing Canada, repeated his 51st state call on election day Monday, a move that may have juiced turnout for Carney.
He didn’t immediately comment on the results, which came as he marks 100 days in his second term in the White House.
Carney’s Liberals had looked to be facing a landslide defeat just a couple of months ago as Canadians looked to turn the page on the unpopular rule of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
But Trump’s trade war and saber-rattling gave a huge boost to Carney as voters wanted to send a clear message to the U.S. that the country wouldn’t take the threats lying down.
The opposition Conservatives, which had been eyeing a sweeping victory, sought to distance themselves from Trump’s rhetoric, but voters apparently saw them as too closely linked to his right-wing policies.