Canada Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland Resigns Amid Rift Over Donald Trump

(Bloomberg) -- Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland resigned from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet over differences in how to prepare for the Trump administration, a stunning move that shakes the government.

Freeland has been the most powerful person in Trudeau’s cabinet for years, and was the point person in strategizing how to counter US President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose 25% tariffs. She announced her resignation in a post to X on Monday morning, just hours before she was due to deliver a fiscal and economic update in parliament. The Canadian dollar fell.

“On Friday, you told me you no longer want me to serve as your Finance Minister and offered me another position in the Cabinet,” Freeland said in her resignation letter to Trudeau. “Upon reflection, I have concluded that the only honest and viable path is for me to resign from the Cabinet.”

“Our country today faces a grave challenge,” Freeland wrote. “We need to take that threat extremely seriously. That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war. That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment.”

Trudeau has now seen the departure of two finance ministers in a little more than four years. Freeland got the job in 2020 after the prime minister had a falling out with then-Finance Minister Bill Morneau over issues such as spending on Covid-related income support programs.