Canada’s government in shambles after Trump tariff threats – what can it do next?

One person, at least, was clearly delighted by the political upheaval triggered in Canada by this week’s sudden resignation of the country’s deputy prime minister.

Chrystia Freeland, who stood down on Monday, had clashed with Justin Trudeau over the appropriate response to stiff tariffs threatened by Donald Trump – and the US president-elect was relishing the drama.

In social media posts, Trump reveled every minute: belittling Canada’s prime minister as a mere “governor” and repeatedly suggested that the country should consider becoming a US state, in what political analysts are seeing as a preview of what’s in store for 2025.

The crisis has once again prompted questions over Trudeau’s political future – but also over the appropriate diplomatic response for Canada and other countries bracing for a second Trump term.

Trump’s threat to impose 25% tariffs on all goods and services from Canada and Mexico was presented as a measure to force the two countries to clamp down on cross-border drug- and people-smuggling.

It represented an unprecedented act of diplomatic aggression against two allied countries which are also the US’s biggest trading partners, and left Trudeau – and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum – scrambling to respond.

The very next day, Trudeau rushed to Florida to meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, where the prime minister promised he would look into reinforcing the border.

The two were pictured dining together and smiling, and Trudeau might have perhaps hoped he had fended off the challenge.

Instead, he became the subject of Trump’s mockery – and when Trudeau’s team announced a $1.3bn plan to shore up border security and surveillance, the president-elect portrayed the move as a personal victory.

“President Trump is securing the border and he hasn’t even taken office yet,” crowed a news release from Trump’s transition team. “Facing an uproar among his own citizens, embattled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just announced a billion-dollar plan for major border security improvements and increased border patrols.”

(Trump’s insults were not reserved for Trudeau; he also badmouthed Freeland as “totally toxic” and claimed that the US “subsidize[d] Canada to the tune of over $100,000,000 a year”.)

“Trying to give Trump what he wants almost never works for anybody. The more he gets, the more he wants. He doesn’t respect people who give into him, he only respects absolutely loyal followers,” said Dennis Pilon, the chair of the political science department at York University in Toronto.

In stark contrast to Trudeau’s attempts to placate Trump, the conservative premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, has become an outspoken critic of the Trump plan, engaging in a US media blitz to portray tariffs as a grave mistake for two countries whose economies and supply chains are closely intertwined.

“You know, both sides of the border are going to feel the pain. We rely on each other,” Ford told CNN on Tuesday. Ford also threatened to cut off energy exports to the US last week if tariffs are implemented – but after warnings from other regional premiers has more recently taken a softer tone.

On Monday, the premiers of the country’s provinces and territories met to discuss the tariff threat and projected a united front on tackling the issue. And with parliament on holiday until the new year, the premiers’ vocal opposition is the best way for Canada to keep its focus on the tariffs issue, said Jean-Rodrigue Paré, a political science professor at the University of Ottawa.

“Trump is so unpredictable, that right now the thing to do … is to design a strategy to protect the Canadian economy against these threats,” he said.

The premiers’ show of strength is important – especially as Trudeau is “now in a very weak position” after his deputy’s resignation, he said.

“Trump is certainly preying on that,” he said.

Since Freeland’s departure, Trudeau has faced calls to resign, from outside and inside his party from a string of MPs. The loss of such a key ally marked a serious blow to a prime minister whose popularity had already bottomed out before the seismic events of this week.

But whether or not Trudeau is still in power in the coming months, Trump’s planned tariffs aren’t going away anytime soon, said Paré.

Nations like Canada are going to have to find a way to deal with the possibility of their economies being upended.

“Trump is now a constant,” he said. “This would happen, whoever is in power right now.”