
‘The year that the shoe dropped’: Canada-U.S. relationship in 2025
Global News
On Jan. 20, Trump returned to the Oval Office to announce his "America First" trade policy. Just weeks later, he announced sweeping tariffs on Canadian imports.
The people anxiously sipping hot chocolate in the Canadian Embassy in Washington on a cold night in January almost a year ago couldn’t have predicted the roller-coaster of trade provocations and bilateral blow-ups the next 12 months would bring.
In hindsight, that unusually chilly Washington evening foreshadowed how the Canada-United States relationship would soon freeze over.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and his talk of annexing Canada had already rattled Canadian politics over the preceding weeks. A rushed trip to Mar-a-Lago in early November 2024 failed to mend former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s already rocky relationship with the incoming U.S. president.
On Jan. 20, the day of his second inauguration, Trump returned to the Oval Office to announce his “America First” trade policy. Just weeks later, he announced sweeping tariffs on Canadian imports.
By early February, it was obvious to everyone the relationship Canadians thought they had with their closest neighbour was over.
Former foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly called on “every single political leader across the board, across the country, to stand united because, now more than ever, we need to make sure that we put country first.”
It was all happening amid a swift domestic political upheaval that saw Trudeau, weakened by poor polling and internal Liberal party dissent, announce on Jan. 6 he would resign as prime minister as soon as a new Liberal leader was chosen.
Mark Carney became party leader in March, and almost immediately launched an election, forming a minority government following a campaign that centred on Trump.













