The foreign policy of Justin Trudeau was Canada's foreign policy of the Liberal government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (in office November 4, 2015 – March 14, 2025).
Trudeau's premiership has been marked with continued close relations with the United States. He has served opposite three U.S. presidents: Barack Obama (2015–2017), Donald Trump (2017–2021, January–March 2025), and Joe Biden (2021–2025). Though the relationship was strained at times under the Trump presidencies, Canada remained a close ally of the United States under his government. He signed the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), and took a leadership role in the Lima Group: an organisation dedicated to supporting the US-aligned opposition in Venezuela. Canada also continued advancing its relationships with the European Union and Asia-Pacific countries with the signing of Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) respectively.
Canada's relationship with China deteriorated, especially following the 2018 arrest of Meng Wanzhou. Following Meng's arrest at the Vancouver airport in December 2018, two Canadians (Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig) were taken in custody. The three of them were held for over 1000 days before being released simultaneously on September 24, 2021. The episode was symptomatic of a major decline in relations between the two countries. Likewise Canada has also seen tense relations with Saudi Arabia following Canada's call for human rights activist Raif Badawi's release, to which Saudi Arabia responded by suspending diplomatic relations.
General aspects
In a March 2016 speech at the University of Ottawa, Stéphane Dion, Trudeau's first foreign affairs minister, used "responsible conviction" – a term syncretized from the work of German sociologist Max Weber – to describe the Trudeau government's foreign policy. Dion sought re-engagement with the world, including authoritarian regimes such as Russia and Iran and a focus on multilateralism, climate change, and the United Nations. Dion indicated that Canada would oppose capital punishment for Canadians imprisoned abroad and would change its contribution to the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant from providing airstrikes to providing special forces trainers. Dion also tied the concept of responsible conviction to continuing some policies of the previous Stephen Harper government in a modified manner, such as continuing its maternal and newborn health initiative but with new funding for abortion and family planning. He also justified continuing a $15 billion sale of light armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia despite its human rights abuses to protect Canadian jobs and preserve Canada's credibility in signing major international deals, but committed to reassessing the rules on Canadian export permits so that future deals would conform to Canadian interests such as human rights promotion. Dion ended his speech by rejecting the concept of Canada as an honest broker, because that term had become too associated with moral relativism and lack of conviction, instead saying that Canada had to be "a fair-minded and determined peace builder".
In its July 25, 2019, Special Report of Canada's international role during the premiership of Prime Minister Trudeau, The Economist, said that despite "politics" that muddied Canada's relationship with several foreign powers, Canada's "place internationally was still strong" with friendly relations with "Europe, Australasia and beyond".
Personnel Trudeau's first Minister of Foreign Affairs was former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion. On January 10, 2017, Dion was replaced as Minister of Foreign Affairs by Chrystia Freeland in a cabinet shuffle, with the move being seen in part as a response to the incoming Trump administration. Dion subsequently resigned his post as MP and was appointed Canadian Ambassador to Germany. In 2019, Foreign Policy named Freeland "Diplomat of the Year" as a "key defender" of this system and for "speaking out for fair trade policies and against human rights violations". Following the 2019 Canadian federal election, François-Philippe Champagne became Foreign Minister as Freeland took the position of Minister of Finance and Deputy prime minister, thereby retaining her influence of Canadian foreign policy. On January 12, 2021, Champagne was replaced as Minister of Foreign Affairs by Marc Garneau in a cabinet shuffle, with the move being seen in part as a response to the incoming Biden administration. Following the 2021 Canadian federal election, Mélanie Joly became Foreign Minister. Trudeau Government foreign policy personnelDeputy Prime MinisterVacant(2015–2019)Freeland (2019–2024) Vacant(2024–2025)Minister of Foreign AffairsDion(2015–2017)Freeland (2017–2019)Champagne(2019–2021)Garneau(2021)Joly(2021–2025)Minister of National DefenceSajjan(2015–2021)Anand(2021–2023)Blair(2023–2025)Permanent Representative to the United NationsRishchynski (2011–2016)Blanchard (2016–2020)Rae (2020–2025)Minister of Public Safety and Emergency PreparednessGoodale(2015–2019)Blair(2019–2021) Mendicino(2021–2023) LeBlanc(2023–2024) McGunity(2024–2025)Minister of International Trade DiversificationFreeland (2015–2017)Champagne(2017–2018)Carr (2018–2019)Discontinued(2019–2025)Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International TradeNot yet created (2015–2018)Mary Ng (2018–2025)Minister of International DevelopmentBibeau(2015–2019)Monsef (2019)Gould (2019–2021)Sajjan (2021–2023)Hussen (2023–2025)
International treaties In 2016, the Trudeau government promised to sign the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture but never did. The Trudeau government signed the Arms Trade Treaty in 2019, The government also signed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2021.
Syrian civil war
In October 2015, Trudeau stated that, once prime minister, he would end Canada's Operation Impact airstrike mission against ISIL. In his mandate letter to Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, he also called for increased focus on Canadian trainers for local troops and humanitarian aid for the region.
In November 2015, Trudeau was asked whether his plans to change Canada's contribution to the fight against ISIL and to repeal parts of Bill C-51 would change following the terrorist attacks in Paris. Trudeau responded, "It's too soon to jump to conclusions, but obviously governments have a responsibility to keep their citizens safe, while defending our rights and freedoms, and that balance is something the Canadian government, and indeed all governments around the world, will be focusing on."
In June 2016, Trudeau's Liberals voted against a Conservative motion in Parliament to recognize ISIL's atrocities as genocide; during a question period, Trudeau said that Canada "strongly condemns the atrocities committed by" ISIL but voted against the resolution because "We do not feel that politicians should be weighing in on this first and foremost. Determinations of genocide need to be made in an objective, responsible way. That is exactly what we have formally requested the international authorities weigh in on." Following the issuance of a report by a United Nations inquiry formally concluding that ISIL was perpetrating a genocide of Yazidis, Trudeau's government recognized the genocide.
In October 2019, Canada condemned the unilateral Turkish invasion of the Kurdish areas in Syria.
Refugees
In 2017, Trudeau criticized U.S. president Donald Trump's issuance of an executive order banning refugees from seven countries, six of which have Muslim majorities, from entering the United States. On social media, Trudeau displayed support for affected refugees.
Since Trudeau was elected as Prime Minister, over 25,000 Syrian refugees have settled in Canada.
UN Security Council bid
In June 2020, Canada lost a vote on temporary membership of the United Nations Security Council. Trudeau was criticized for having an unclear message on the world stage. Meanwhile, opposition leader Andrew Scheer criticized the campaign as "another foreign affairs failure for Justin Trudeau," accusing him of "[selling] out Canada's principles for a personal vanity project. Former U.N. ambassador under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Stephen Lewis, pointed to public controversies affecting the Trudeau "brand" as having played a role in the results, such as the prime minister's much-talked-about trip to India in 2018 and photos of the prime minister in blackface that were revealed during the 2019 federal election campaign. However, Bessma Momani, an international affairs expert at the University of Waterloo, said it is not fair to see the loss as an indictment of Trudeau's global popularity. Chris Westdal, a former Canadian diplomat who had headed missions in Moscow and Geneva, also dismissed criticisms of Trudeau's image as having an effect on Canada's standing internationally, writing in an op-ed for the Ottawa Citizen that "Though his critics wouldn't have you believe it, our prime minister is known and respected in the world for more than colourful socks and zany costumes."
Other observers and commentators, including Adam Chapnick, author of Canada on the United Nations Security Council: A Small Power on a Large Stage, and Thomas Juneau, Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, did not even mention Trudeau's personal "brand" as a factor in their respective analyses, but have highlighted more complex factors they felt were more likely to have affected the outcome of the bid, and Canada's international outlook more generally. Among these were the late start to Canada's campaign (roughly a decade after competitors Ireland and Norway); a structural decline in Canadian foreign policy that predated and continued into Trudeau's premiership, including Trudeau's government requiring considerable time and resources to deal with Donald Trump's administration and rivalries with such countries as China, India, and Saudi Arabia; internal friction between the prime minister and former Liberal Party leader turned German ambassador Stéphane Dion; and even flaws within the selection process and the UNSC apparatus itself, including the veto power of its permanent membership leading to a "perpetual stalemate" and the ultra-competitiveness of Canada being clustered with European countries, which tend to vote as a bloc, an element of the campaign that Trudeau had also found fault with. In a press conference on June 17, 2020, the day the vote was to be held, Trudeau stated, "I have nothing but respect for our two competitors, Ireland and Norway, that have demonstrated an engagement in the world. It is unfortunate that we're in a situation of having to compete against friends for this."
Following the results, at a press conference the following day, Trudeau went on to cite Canada's late start to the campaign as a significant factor in the outcome. He then declared that Canada would nevertheless have a strong global voice due to the deepened relations it had forged with other countries, and that it would "continue to work with [allies] on all our shared values on the world stage."
International trade
Under Justin Trudeau, Canada entered three new major free trade agreements. These are the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), between Canada and the European Union, the "biggest trade deal since NAFTA", the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership with ten Pacific countries, and the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). The Economist argues that the foreign relations with the United States and China were "more resilient" than the media reports "imply".
Nuclear weapons