Mark Carney is sworn in as Canada's new prime minister as country deals with Trump's trade war

TORONTO (AP) — Former central banker Mark Carney was sworn in as Canada’s new prime minister on Friday, and will now try to steer his country through a trade war brought by U.S. President Donald Trump, annexation threats and an expected federal election.

Carney, 59, replaces Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who announced his resignation in January but remained in power until the Liberal Party elected a new leader. Carney is widely expected to trigger a general election in the coming days or weeks.

“We will never, ever, in any way shape or form, be part of the United States. America is not Canada,” Carney said. “We are very fundamentally a different country.”

The governing Liberal Party had appeared poised for a historic election defeat this year until Trump declared economic war and repeatedly has said Canada should become the 51st state. Now the party and its new leader could come out on top.

Carney has said he’s ready to meet with Trump if he shows respect for Canadian sovereignty. He said he doesn't plan to visit Washington at the moment but hopes to have a phone call with the president soon.

“The president is a successful businessman and deal maker. We’re his largest client in so many industries,” Carney said. “Clients expect respect and working together in a proper commercial way.”

Carney navigated crises when he was the head of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis, and then in 2013 when he became the first noncitizen to run the Bank of England — helping to manage the worst impacts of Brexit in the U.K.

Carney, a former Goldman Sachs executive with no experience in politics, becomes Canada’s 24th prime minister. He said protecting Canadian workers and their families in the face of unjustified trade actions and growing the economy will be his top priorities.

Carney said he will travel to Europe to visit French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the coming days. He received invitations from both.

“We must diversify our trade partners and strengthen our security in so doing,” Carney said.

Trump put 25% tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminum and is threatening sweeping tariffs on all Canadian products April 2. He has threatened economic coercion in his annexation threats and suggested the border is a fictional line.

Carney called the idea “crazy.”

The U.S. trade war and Trump's talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state have infuriated Canadians, who are booing the American anthem at NHL and NBA games. Some are canceling trips south of the border, and many are avoiding buying American goods when they can.

Carney said he’s worked with Trump before at G7 and G20 summits during Trump’s first presidency.

“We share some experiences. I have been in the private sector. I have worked in the real estate sector. I have done large transactions,” Carney said. “We will both be looking out for our countries but he knows, and I know from long experience, that we can find mutual solutions that win for both.”

The opposition Conservatives hoped to make the election about Trudeau, whose popularity declined as food and housing prices rose and immigration surge.

But after decades of bilateral stability, the vote on Canada’s next leader now is expected to focus on who is best equipped to deal with the U.S.

“He will do very well. He’s respected internationally,” former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien told reporters Friday. But, he added: “There is no magic solution. This is not a normal situation. We’ve never seen someone who changes his mind every five minutes as president of the United States."

A new Cabinet of 13 men and 11 women was sworn in, smaller than Trudeau's 37-member team. François-Philippe Champagne becomes Canada's new finance minister, the government's second most powerful position. Champagne has said a new prime minister offers a chance of a reset with Trump.

Dominic LeBlanc goes from finance to to intergovernmental affairs. Mélanie Joly remains foreign minister. Chrystia Freeland, a former deputy prime minister and finance minister who lost to Carney in the Liberal Party leadership race, becomes minister of transport and internal trade.

Carney met his Cabinet and eliminated a consumer carbon price on his first day, undoing Trudeau’s signature climate policy. He called his government “Canada's new government” in an effort to distance himself from Trudeau.

Carney also took aim at opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, a career politician who Carney said is always negative.

“Negativity won't pay the rent or the mortgage. Negativity won't bring down the price of groceries. Negativity won't win a trade war,” he said.

Poilievre urged Canadians not to give the Liberals a fourth mandate, saying it's the same Liberal government and that Carney is “just like Justin.”

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks at a news conference following a cabinet swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, on Friday, March 14, 2025. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)

Canada's Prime minister-designate Mark Carney arrives for a swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Friday, March 14, 2025. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

Prime minister-designate Mark Carney, left, and Chrystia Freeland look on ahead of a swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Friday, March 14, 2025. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)

Prime minister-designate Mark Carney arrives for a swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Friday, March 14, 2025. (Adrian Wyld /The Canadian Press via AP)

Canadian Prime Minister designate Mark Carney tours the ArcelorMittal Dofasco steel plant in Hamilton, Ontario, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)

Prime minister-designate Mark Carney arrives for a swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Friday, March 14, 2025. (Adrian Wyld /The Canadian Press via AP)

Mark Carney is sworn in as prime minister during a ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Friday, March 14, 2025. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)

Canada Liberal Leader Mark Carney leaves a caucus meeting in Ottawa, Monday, March 10, 2025. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)

Canadian Prime Minister designate Mark Carney, second right, speaks to steel workers after touring the ArcelorMittal Dofasco steel plant in Hamilton, Ont., on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (Nathan Denette /The Canadian Press via AP)

Canada Liberal leader Mark Carney speaks briefly with media as he makes his way to a caucus meeting on Monday, March 10, 2025, in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)

President Donald Trump claimed Monday that pardons recently issued by Joe Biden to lawmakers and staff on the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot have no force because the-then president signed them with an autopen instead of by his own hand.

"In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!” Trump wrote on his social media site. Trump didn’t offer any evidence to support his claims. Nor did the White House.

Trump asserted in his post, in all caps, that the pardons are void and have no effect in his estimation. But presidents have broad authority to pardon or commute the sentences of whomever they please, the Constitution doesn’t specify that pardons must be in writing and autopen signatures have been used before for substantive actions by presidents.

Asked if White House lawyers had told Trump he has the legal authority to undo pardons signed by autopen, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said "the president was raising the point that did the president even know about these pardons? Was his legal signature used without his consent or knowledge and that’s not just the president or me raising those questions.”

She went on to cite recent reporting by the New York Post that quoted two unidentified Biden White House aides who speculated about alleged abuse of the autopen during his tenure.

Pressed for evidence that Biden was unaware of the pardons, Leavitt told the press corps at the daily briefing, “You're a reporter. You should find out.”

An autopen is a mechanical device that is used to replicate a person's authentic signature. A pen or other writing implement is held by an arm of the machine, which reproduces a signature after a writing sample has been fed to it. Presidents, including Trump, have used them for decades. Autopens aren't the same as an old-fashioned ink pad and rubber stamp or the electronic signatures used on PDF documents.

The Oversight Project at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank recently said its analysis of thousands of pages of documents bearing Biden's signature found that most were by autopen, including pardons. Conservative media have amplified the claims, which have been picked up by Trump. He has commented for several days running about Biden's autopen use.

Mike Howell, the project's executive director, said in an interview that his team is scrutinizing Biden's pardons because that power lies only with the president under the Constitution and can't be delegated to another person or a machine. Howell said some of Biden's pardon papers also specify they were signed in Washington on days when he was elsewhere.

There is no law governing a president's use of an autopen.

A 2005 opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department said an autopen can be used to sign legislation. Barack Obama became the first president to do so in May 2011 when he signed an extension of the Patriot Act. Obama was in France on official business and, with time running out before the law expired, he authorized use of the autopen to sign it into law.

Much earlier guidance on pardons was sent in 1929 from the solicitor general — the attorney who argues for the United States before the Supreme Court — to the attorney general. It says "neither the Constitution nor any statute prescribes the method by which executive clemency shall be exercised or evidenced."

Yes, but “only for very unimportant papers," he said on Monday.

He told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday night that, "we may use it, as an example, to send some young person a letter because it’s nice. You know, we get thousands and thousands of letters, letters of support for young people, from people that aren’t feeling well, etcetera. But to sign pardons and all of the things that he signed with an autopen is disgraceful.”

Trump remains angry at being prosecuted by the Justice Department over his actions in inspiring his supporters to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying Biden's defeat of him in the 2020 election, though the case was dismissed after he won reelection. At the end of his term, Biden issued “preemptive pardons” to lawmakers and committee staff to protect them from any possible retribution from Trump.

On whether pardons must be in writing or by the president's own hand, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has said the ”plain language of the Constitution imposes no such limitation.” Biden’s statement accompanying those pardons make clear they were official acts, said Carl Tobias, professor at the University of Richmond law school.

Biden issued hundreds of commutations or pardons, including to members of his family, also because he feared possible prosecution by Trump and his allies.

Trump vigorously used such powers at the opening of his presidency, issuing one document — a proclamation — granting pardons and commutations to all 1,500-plus people charged in the insurrection at the Capitol.

Presidents also use an autopen to sign routine correspondence to constituents, like letters recognizing important life milestones.

During the Gerald Ford administration, the president and first lady Betty Ford occasionally signed documents and other correspondence by hand but White House staff more often used autopen machines to reproduce their signatures on letters and photographs.

Leavitt is one of three Trump administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First- and Fifth-amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

President Joe Biden,signs a presidential memorandum that will establish the first-ever White House Initiative on Women's Health Research in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Nov. 13, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Damilic Corp. president Bob Olding anchors a sheet of paper as the Atlantic Plus, the Signascript tabletop model autopen, produces a signature at their Rockville, Md., office, June 13, 2011. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)