TORONTO (AP) — Chrystia Freeland, whose abrupt resignation as finance minister last month forced Justin Trudeau’s exit as prime minister, said she is running to be the next leader of the Liberal Party and prime minister of Canada.Freeland said Friday in a statement posted on X that she will officially launch her campaign on Sunday.She also released an opinion piece in which she called for economic retaliation if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump follows through with his threat to impose tariffs on all Canadian products.Fire at one of the world’s largest battery plants in California forces evacuations
“If President Trump imposes 25 per cent tariffs, our counterpunch must be dollar-for-dollar — and it must be precisely and painfully targeted,” Freeland wrote in the Toronto Star.“Florida orange growers, Michigan dishwasher manufacturers and Wisconsin dairy farmers: brace yourselves. Canada is America’s largest export market — bigger than China, Japan, the U.K., and France combined. If pushed, our response will be the single largest trade blow the U.S. economy has ever endured,” she added.Freeland announced her resignation from Trudeau’s Cabinet on Dec. 16, criticizing some of Trudeau’s economic priorities in the face of Trump’s tariff threats. The move stunned the country and raised questions about how much longer the increasingly unpopular Trudeau could stay in his job.