It’s been a crucial but relatively stable week in the world of general elections, against the growing tide of anti-incumbency which dominated and almost defined 2024.

On Monday, 28 April, Mark Carney and his Liberal Party won the Canadian election, defeating the Conservative Party opposition by a narrow margin. Carney took the prime ministerial seat in early March after 85% of his party voted for him to succeed Justin Trudeau.

On Saturday, 3 May, Anthony Albanese enjoyed a landslide victory, as the Australian Labour Party entirely reversed projections of a loss from just three months ago.

Canada and Australia are almost as far apart geographically as two countries can be. Yet, they share a British colonial legacy and thereby a Westminster parliamentary system; both have historically clashed with indigenous populations, particularly when it comes to displacement and commodity extraction; they both serve as mining hubs for the global economy; and both are making steady progress in the energy transition while gradually reducing fossil fuel reliance. 

In terms of their new leaders, Carney and Albanese have both surfed the wave of anti-US sentiment and are vocal antagonists of US President Donald Trump, whose blitzkrieg of tariffs made contact with key Canadian and Australian trade routes.  

In trade and commodities, then, what have these two world leaders done so far, and what could be in store?

Does Carney’s reputation precede him?

Carney has a strong CV for the financial sector. He was governor of the Bank of Canada between 2008 and 2013, and of the Bank of England between 2013 and 2020; he has chaired the Basel Financial Stability Board (FSB); and he launched the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets in 2020. 

His background has informed his ambitious plans for trade, which rely in part on trade finance to strengthen the domestic export industry and decrease uncertainty. Canada sends more than 75% of its exports to the US, and Carney has indicated openness, even eagerness, towards new free-trade agreements and security pacts to replace the now discredited USMCA – US, Mexico, and Canada – that comes up for review in 2026.

The Liberal Party’s manifesto promises to open a £13.5 billion export credit facility “to support Canadian businesses as they expand into new markets” by helping other countries procure Canadian goods. This will be all the more crucial as demand in the US, by far the largest buyer of Canadian exports, will dwindle due to the tariffs. 

Trump has done little to assuage US resentment in Canada, declaring on Sunday that: “We do very little business with Canada. They do all of their business practically with us. They need us. We don’t need them.” Trump’s promise to turn Canada into the 51st US state has been favourable for the Liberals, but Carney must ensure that his rhetoric translates to diversifying international trade.

Canada is unique as one of the few developed countries which are net exporters of energy. Alberta holds 13% of global oil reserves: consider the Athabasca oil sands, for example. In fact, as of 2025, Canada held a positive trade balance of $6.6 billion. The country can afford to look elsewhere for its imports.

Albanese boomerangs back around

As the first Labour leader to win back-to-back victories in over 20 years, Albanese’s campaign ran with a domestic focus: rising rents and mortgages, electricity and petrol costs, and healthcare.

In its previous tenure, the Albanese government focused on economic diversification and regional engagement, and rolled out a number of trade and financing initiatives to this end, including:

• A £2 billion investment financing facility to provide loans, guarantees, equity and insurance for Australian trade and investment in Southeast Asia, particularly towards the clean energy transition and infrastructure development.
• The modernisation of free trade agreements, such as the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA), which focuses on bolstering micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises in the region.
• Efforts to simplify Australia’s trade system and rebuild trade relations with China by removing longstanding red tape.
• The National Reconstruction Fund and the Future Made in Australia Act to support green manufacturing and value-added mineral processing (Albanese attempts to be clear that is “not old-fashioned protectionism”, but rather “the new competition”).

The Trump tariffs have not targeted Australia as aggressively, with only a 10% baseline rate, but key Australian sectors will be hit nonetheless. The IMF forecast in January that Australia’s growth rate would be 2.1% this year. This has since been revised down to 1.6% as a result of US tariffs.

Australia will be most impacted by China’s responses. China is Australia’s largest trading partner: it accounts for nearly a third of Australia’s exports in goods and services, and is a crucial buyer of commodities from iron ore and natural gas to fine wine and barley. One of Albanese’s most notable successes was a detente with Beijing, when in June 2024, punitive sanctions originating during COVID-19 were removed.

Source: Financial Times

Carney’s victory speech asserted that Trump’s are not “idle threats”, and that “President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us.” Albanese thought the same, and warned following the imposition of US tariffs: “This is not the act of a friend.” In this ‘cost of living’ election, as in Canada, Trump’s aggression has worked favourably from the perspective of Albanese’s reelection. How Albanese weathers the storm will be the real test. 

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Former Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan called Monday’s and Saturday’s results “a great result for the social democrats around the world.” The elections in Australia and Canada have a great deal in common in terms of trade rerouting and resistance to geopolitical and macroeconomic aggression.

But Swan should hasten before celebrating around the whole world. In the UK, the anti-EU, right-leaning Reform UK added a fifth MP to its ranks after winning 10 local council elections on Thursday. Today, Friedrich Merz of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) failed to be elected as chancellor – the first time in postwar German history that a candidate has lost the first round of voting – as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) grows louder. 

These two national elections cannot be regarded either in isolation or as emblematic. But Carney and Albanese should be centralist and moderate voices in an increasingly populist political chorus around trade and commodities.