Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Canada going to the polls, a deadly U.S. airstrike in Yemen, and a devastating explosion at an Iranian port.
Canada Votes
As millions of Canadians headed to the polls on Monday to elect the country’s next leader, U.S. President Donald Trump wished them luck, then once again touted the idea of Canada becoming the “cherished” 51st American state.
“No more artificially drawn line from many years ago. Look how beautiful this land mass would be,” he declared in a post on Truth Social. “Free access with NO BORDER. ALL POSITIVES WITH NO NEGATIVES. IT WAS MEANT TO BE!”
Trump’s remarks, the latest in a long line of threats toward America’s northern neighbor, underscore just how dramatically Washington and Ottawa’s relationship has changed in just a matter of months since Trump took office for his second term. Those tensions, sparked not only by Trump’s talk of annexing Canada but also by the steep tariffs he has imposed on the country, have seeped into the public, as Canadians retaliate with their own boycotts of American goods and rethink travel to the United States.
It’s an unmistakable rupture that looms over Monday’s snap election in Canada, as both front-runners—the Liberal Party’s Mark Carney and the Conservative Party’s Pierre Poilievre—capitalize on Trump’s aggressive stance to rally supporters to the ballot box.
Carney stepped into his position as interim prime minister after his Liberal Party predecessor, Justin Trudeau, resigned earlier this year after a nine-year run due to his plunging popularity. The former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, Carney has framed himself as a centrist politician in contrast with Trudeau’s more liberal stance. In the face of Trump’s threats, Carney has positioned himself as a protector of Canadian sovereignty and has vowed to deepen Canada’s alliances around the world.
“Donald Trump wants to break us so America can own us. It is our strength that the Americans want,” he declared at a rally. “They want our resources, they want our water, they want our land, they want our country. They can’t have it.”
Carney’s primary challenger is the Conservative Party’s Pierre Poilievre, a career politician who has advocated for deregulation, small government, and policies to boost Canada’s fossil fuel industry. Like Carney, Poilievre has vowed a tough response to Trump. Both men have advocated for retaliatory tariffs and to boost the Canadian military—although Carney has been more outspoken in confronting the U.S. leader.
While Poilievre was once seen as a favorite to win, pre-election polls suggest that Carney’s Liberal Party may now have a slight upper hand. Trump’s threats may have something to do with that. While the public has grown increasingly frustrated by economic and social issues like higher costs of living and unemployment—issues that ultimately contributed to Trudeau’s resignation—the U.S. leader has only complicated voters’ calculus. And for some, Poilievre’s blustery rhetoric and ideological views might be too similar to those of the U.S. leader.
“Unfortunately for Poilievre, many voters perceive him as too much like Trump,” the journalist Justin Ling wrote in a profile of Poilievre earlier this month. “Sixty percent of Canadians have an unfavorable view of Poilievre—and according to pollster Angus Reid, less than 30 percent think that Poilievre is the better choice for prime minister.”
Preliminary results are expected to be released Monday night or early on Tuesday.
Today’s Most Read
- The Morass of the French Left by Cole Stangler
- Trump’s First 100 Days on the Global Stage by FP Contributors
- The Drivers (and Passengers) of Trump’s Foreign Policy by FP Staff
The World This Week
Monday, April 28, to Tuesday, April 29: BRICS foreign ministers meet in Rio de Janeiro.
Poland hosts the Three Seas Initiative Summit.
Wednesday, April 30: French President Emmanuel Macron hosts outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for talks in Paris.
Saturday, May 3: Australia holds federal elections.
U.S. and Iranian officials hold a fourth round of nuclear talks.
Sunday, May 4: Romania holds a re-run of its presidential election.
What We’re Following
Mending ties. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral on Saturday, marking the two leaders’ first meeting since Trump and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance berated Zelensky in the Oval Office in February.
This round of talks appeared to be more productive. In a post on X, Zelensky hailed the conversation as a “very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results.” It comes as Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s continued bombing of Ukraine, going as far as writing “Vladimir, STOP!” in a post on Truth Social last week following a particularly deadly Russian strike on Kyiv.
After meeting with Zelensky, Trump continued to voice his irritation with the Russian leader, citing recent Russian strikes in civilian areas. “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “Too many people are dying!!!”
Putin on Monday ordered a three-day unilateral cease-fire in Ukraine next month to coincide with Russia’s commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II. But the announcement did little to appease Trump, who “wants to see a permanent cease-fire,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday.
Deadly airstrike in Yemen. The United States was behind a deadly airstrike that hit a Yemeni detention center holding African migrants, killing at least 68 people and injuring 47 more, according to Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Since the center was being supervised by the International Organization for Migration and the Red Cross, the strike “constitutes a full-fledged war crime,” the Houthis said. The U.S. military has not publicly commented on the strike.
The U.S. military said on Sunday that it had hit more than 800 targets in the past six weeks, part of the Trump administration’s campaign to deter the group and restore freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, where more than a year of Houthi attacks have upended global shipping. But Washington’s more than $1 billion blitz isn’t going well, “underscoring just how hard it is for U.S. President Donald Trump to turn muscular rhetoric into real-world results,” FP’s Keith Johnson writes.
Iran’s port tragedy. Iran is reeling from a massive explosion that rocked the country’s biggest shipping port on Saturday, killing at least 40 people and injuring more than 900 others, according to state media. In the aftermath of the explosion, officials declared a public health emergency in the province as a result of toxic airborne pollutants, and urged locals to stay inside.
The cause of the explosion remains unclear, although some officials have pointed to improperly stored containers of chemicals as a potential source. “Safety precautions and passive defenses were not implemented or taken seriously at the port,” Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said on Monday, according to Tasnim News Agency. Officials “have been made aware of some shortcomings at the port,” Momeni said.
Odds and Ends
It’s not yet climbing season at Japan’s Mount Fuji, but one 27-year-old man didn’t let that stop him. After scaling the mountain, an unnamed Chinese university student needed to be rescued twice in four days—the second time because he went back to retrieve his cellphone. Authorities continue to warn against climbing in the offseason.
The post Trump Looms Over Canada’s Pivotal Election appeared first on Foreign Policy.
