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<\/p>\n\n Mark Carney once provided the last line of defense for the Harvard Crimson hockey team.\n <\/p>\n
\n As the back-up goalie \u2014 and often the back-up to the back-up \u2014 Carney spent most of each season on the bench. But teammate Mark Benning recalls one critical playoff game sometime in the mid-80s when Carney, sent onto the ice to replace an injured player, stopped all shots from the opposing team.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI never saw any time where he cracked under pressure,\u201d said Benning, a venture capital executive still friends with Carney.\n <\/p>\n
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\n Some 40 years later, now as Canada\u2019s prime minister, Carney finds himself back in the rink, this time against the world\u2019s most formidable opposition: President Donald Trump, flanked by the $30 trillion US economy.\n <\/p>\n
\n On Saturday, Carney rejected a trade deal with the United States after Trump officials made 11th-hour demands that, among other outcomes, would\u2019ve limited Canada\u2019s freedom to cut deals with other nations. Red lines crossed, Carney vowed dollar-for-dollar tariffs on American goods entering Canada, some as high as 50%.\n <\/p>\n
\n It was a bold move, one that echoed a speech<\/a> Carney gave at Davos in January, in which he called on the world\u2019s \u201cmiddle powers\u201d to band together against Trump and his tariffs. \u201cIf we\u2019re not at the table, we\u2019re on the menu,\u201d he said of countries like his, cut adrift by a \u201crupture\u201d in the rules-based global order.\n <\/p>\n \n Canadians overwhelmingly approved<\/a> of his decision to walk away. Once again, now in the eyes of his country, Carney had met the moment.\n <\/p>\n \n Carney has forged his career through catastrophe. Once the top central banker for Canada and then Britain, he has shepherded economies through the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath.\n <\/p>\n \n Still, his transformation from policy wonk to prime minister in last year\u2019s election owes much to the 47th president. Trump\u2019s tariffs and repeated taunts undermining Canadian sovereignty created a political crisis voters trusted Carney to best manage.\n <\/p>\n \n But the same fight behind Carney\u2019s political strength may become his undoing. A protracted conflict with Canada\u2019s closest and most powerful trading partner would put Carney in a bind. If he holds firm, he risks deep harm to the Canadian economy. If he makes concessions, he risks losing the support of an infuriated public.\n <\/p>\n \n Carney, today celebrated in a moment of crisis, could end up pleasing no one.\n <\/p>\n \u2018Calm\u2019 but \u2018demanding\u2019<\/p>\n \n In the days before Carney walked away from the trade talks, Howard Lunick, Trump\u2019s commerce secretary, had been texting and calling. The direct line of communication was nothing new and Lutnick\u2019s agency had jurisdiction over the issues at hand. Even so, his last-minute entrance into talks between American and Canadian trade teams was disruptive, according to two people familiar with the matter.\n <\/p>\n \n Lutnick is more friendly and less bombastic with Carney in private than his public persona might suggest, one person said. Still, Lutnick strongly opposed provisions in the developing agreement that would have substantially lowered US tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum and auto imports.\n <\/p>\n \n It was one backtrack of several that Carney said<\/a> in a Saturday speech were \u201cuneconomic, unfair, and undermined the net benefits for Canada, and called into question the reliability of any deal.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Trump officials have rebuked Carney in the days since. Lutnick on Thursday rejected<\/a> Canadian accounts of how talks had blown up, claiming Carney had \u201cmanufactured\u201d a dispute to boost his domestic political standing. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Wednesday called the prime minister\u2019s Trump-focused election victory last year the \u201cworst thing that ever happened to Canada,\u201d adding on CSPAN<\/a> that \u201csomehow, every time Carney dumps on Trump, the Canadian people reward him with political support.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n On Thursday, Trump signed<\/a> an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America for US federal entities and saying, without mentioning Carney specifically, \u201cThe Canadian officials have treated us very badly. They\u2019re nasty people.\u201d He added that Canada is the \u201cworst to deal with on trade,\u201d claiming \u201cthey feel entitled.\u201d Navarro warned Wednesday that \u201cplaying politics\u201d with the US is \u201cnot going to end well for Canada.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n But Carney has handled greater emergencies. After Harvard, an economics Ph.D. at Oxford and more than a decade spent at Goldman Sachs, he moved into government in the run-up to the global financial crisis.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMark has always had the ability to see where an issue is going, understand the second- and third-order consequences,\u201d said Tim Adams, a former US Treasury official during the George W. Bush administration, who often found himself in the same room as Carney. \u201cHe tends to be very prepared, very disciplined, and very comfortable operating under pressure.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n When the meltdown arrived in 2008, Carney was leading the Bank of Canada. James Moore, part of the country\u2019s ruling Conservative government at the time and later its minister of industry, recalls an emergency cabinet meeting attended by Carney in the fall of that year. It was a time of pure havoc: Canada had just held a federal election and the global economy was beginning to buckle. Moore described Carney\u2019s briefing that day as a \u201cmasterclass\u201d \u2014 \u201cblunt, calm, reassuring, and substantive.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Carney now leads Canada\u2019s Liberal Party, but Moore said he and other former members of that Conservative government \u201chold him in incredibly high regard and think that he\u2019s doing a phenomenal job as Canada\u2019s prime minister in these difficult times.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The Bank of England poached Carney a few years later, appointing him the first foreign governor in the institution\u2019s 330-year history. He helped steer Britain through the tumult of Brexit, appearing quickly after the 2016 vote to assure markets and citizens that he had a plan. He had warned openly of the economic risks, drawing criticism from pro-Brexit campaigners that he was veering too far into politics.\n <\/p>\n \n A report<\/a> by Canadian magazine Maclean\u2019s in October, citing an unnamed government staffer, painted Carney as short-tempered with some of his colleagues. The mood in Carney\u2019s administration is tenser than that under his Liberal predecessor Justin Trudeau, who ran the place like \u201can encouraging teacher,\u201d according to the publication.\n <\/p>\n \n Trudeau, the son of a Canadian prime minister, was familiar with the slings and arrows of politics. Carney, however, was more likely used to the deference that came from his position as the top finance guy, the steady hand in a complicated crisis, the magazine suggested.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cHe\u2019s demanding and is quite clear about what his standards would be, I think,\u201d said Supriya Dwivedi, a former senior adviser to Trudeau who served with Carney on the advisory board for Canada 2020, a liberal think tank. \u201cBecause I think he\u2019s such a hard worker himself, he kind of expects that of those around him \u2013 and there\u2019s nothing wrong with that \u2013 but, of course, when you\u2019re working very long hours and you\u2019re in politics and not finance, you sometimes need a bit of a lighter touch.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Carney\u2019s tendency to arrogance was documented<\/a> by Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail in profiles<\/a> that long preceded his political career. His capacity for snappiness was on public display during a press conference days after he became prime minister last year.\n <\/p>\n \n CBC correspondent Rosemary Barton told<\/a> Carney it is \u201cvery difficult to believe\u201d that his many years in the private sector had created no possible conflicts of interest with his finances. He seemed irritated.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cLook inside yourself, Rosemary,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cI have left my roles in the private sector at a time of crisis for our country. I\u2019m complying with all the rules.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Carney always risked seeming out of touch. His career in central banking was bookended by years spent in private investing, at Goldman and then Brookfield, a Canadian asset management firm where he worked up until his run for the Liberal leadership in early 2025.\n <\/p>\n \n Despite a background as the son of two teachers, born in a tiny town in the Northwest Territories and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, and now with a 30-plus-year marriage and four daughters, it would always be difficult for the Finance Guy to become the Everyman.\n <\/p>\n \n Pollster Nik Nanos tracked the 2025 election campaign. When the public concerns focused on the cost of living, the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre would experience a boost, he told CNN. But then Trump would do something chaotic, outrageous or directly antagonistic to Canada \u2014 like calling it the \u201c51st state\u201d \u2014 and support for Carney\u2019s incumbent Liberal Party would pop.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIn 2025, we came off 10 years of the Justin Trudeau Liberal government, and by the end of their tenure, people were ready for massive change,\u201d said Nanos, chief data scientist of Nanos Research. But the focus quickly evolved. Suddenly, it wasn\u2019t about \u201cwho you liked or what party that you liked \u2014 it turned into a ballot question on who can best manage the relationship with Donald Trump.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Still, Canadians, though angry with the Trump administration, want a cooperative trading relationship with the US, according to Nanos. Carney\u2019s real political test will come later, he said, when the economic consequences of tit-for-tat tariffs, like possible layoffs and business bankruptcies, become clear.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like a classic war. You know, war is declared, everybody\u2019s cheering as the soldiers go out the door, until the first soldier comes home as a casualty,\u201d said Nanos.\n <\/p>\n \n And it\u2019s possible Carney shares the same fate as other leaders valorized in conflict only to see their standing fall once the fight is over, the common enemy gone and polarizing domestic issues return to the top of the public agenda; for Canada, those include expensive housing and battles over immigration and health policy.\n <\/p>\n \n For now, though, Carney holds a commanding<\/a> lead<\/a> in Canadian opinion polls and is even winning some support on the other side of the border.\n <\/p>\n \n Debbie Dingell, a Democratic congresswoman from Michigan, has said she believes Carney is well within his rights to resist her president. \u201cWe are so integral to each other. It\u2019s economic security, and it\u2019s national security. They are our family. What President Trump is doing to Canada is just not OK. I\u2019m fine that Carney is standing up,\u201d she told CNN on Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing popular about what President Trump is doing,\u201d said Chellie Pingree, a Democratic congresswoman from Maine. Carney, Pingree said, was doing the \u201cright thing, staying tough.\u201d\n <\/p>\n![\"Canada's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2026-01-20t191122z-126460389-rc235jaiu0bs-rtrmadp-3-davos-meeting.jpg\")
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