Carney, ‘strong and resolute’ in first year, now has to deliver on promises

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney took office last year amid a flurry of aggressive actions by his country’s southern neighbour. A recently sworn-in United States president, Donald Trump, slapped tariffs on Canadian exports and threatened to make the US neighbour the 51st state.The actions were particularly damning as Canada had deep trade and security ties with the US, not only sending nearly 80 percent of its exports to that market, but also often following lockstep on geopolitical policy and strategic moves.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Trump admin probe into ABC amid Kimmel row sparks US free speech concernslist 2 of 4UAE quits OPEC: What that means for the Gulf, energy markets and beyondlist 3 of 4US Fed holds rates steady, Powell to remain on its boardlist 4 of 4Musk accuses Altman of betraying OpenAI’s nonprofit founding missionend of listAll that was thrown aside when Trump took office, and Canada, under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, was one of the first countries he slapped with tariffs.After a year of dealing with a mercurial and unpredictable US president, experts applaud Carney as “standing strong and resolute”, not just in the face of Trump’s threats, but also against internal critics.“The most notable aspect of the last year was both a bullet dodged and a savvy bit of statecraft to avoid a rush to do a deal on trade and invest with the US the way many other countries did,” said Brett House, a senior fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.“Commitments from this president are absolutely worthless, and the biggest accomplishment of the first year has been standing strong and resolute in the face of internal critics,” House told Al Jazeera.Indeed, Carney has used Trump’s attacks on allies and others to refocus Canada’s foreign policy and place in the world.With the US no longer the anchor of a rules-based order, and with there now being a “deep rupture” caused by changes in Washington, “Carney has aimed to build at home and diversify abroad, as Ottawa’s dependence and long ties have now become a source of weakness,” said Vina Nadjibulla, the vice president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.“And he’s doing this at a speed, scale and ambition that we haven’t seen in recent years” in Ottawa, Nadjibulla said.‘Rupture’ in global orderSome of that stance was evident in January, when Carney, in a speech in Davos, said there was a “rupture” in the global rules-based order and that Middle Powers like Canada and others had to rise strategically to address geopolitical tensions.But it was visible in his actions even before Davos, when he had reached out to countries that had historically been important trade partners but where relations had been frozen due to political tensions under his predecessor, Trudeau.For instance, Carney invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the G7 meeting in Canada to initiate a reset of ties with New Delhi that had been in a deep freeze since Trudeau alleged in 2023 that India was involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist activist on Canadian soil.Carney also recalibrated Canada’s relations with China, which had been tense since Canadian authorities arrested a key official of Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei as she was transitioning through the Vancouver international airport in December 2018. China retaliated against the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, which was carried out at the request of US authorities, by detaining two Canadians.Carney has also deepened relations with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and others, making sure to align on security and economic issues, and has drawn Canada closer to Europe, Nadjibulla pointed out.Domestic pushIn the lead-up to elections last year, Carney “positioned himself as a centrist, a moderate, and went to great lengths to distance himself from the image of Justin Trudeau,” said Sanjay Jeram, the chair of the political science department at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby,