Welcome back to TLDR's Daily Briefing for Monday 10th March 2025. In today's episode, we cover Romania's upcoming presidential election, a US-Poland social media spat, and US-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia. But first, Canada's new Prime Minister. The former governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, has been elected the new leader of Canada's ruling Liberal Party, taking over from outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Carney won the party's leadership election on Sunday with a monumental 85.9% of the vote, beating his next nearest challenger, Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau's former finance minister, who received just 8%. Upon victory, Carney immediately became leader of the Liberals, but won't become Prime Minister until he's sworn in by Governor-General Mary Simon. At a time of writing, a date hasn't been set for this, so for now, he remains Prime Minister-designate.
59-year-old Carney is not a Member of Parliament, and has never actually held political office before. He previously served as Governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013. steering the country's economy through the financial crisis, and then served as the Governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, right through the tumultuous Brexit period. His entry into Canadian politics comes at a time when relations with Canada's southern neighbour, the United States, have all but collapsed.
Not only the two countries in the midst of a potentially devastating trade war sparked by Donald Trump's imposition of tariffs, but Canada also faces repeated calls by Trump for Canada to be subsumed into the United States. as the 51st state. In his victory speech, Carney focused his fire on Trump, repeatedly mentioning him by name and vowing to win the trade war, saying The Canadian government.
has rightly retaliated and is rightly retaliating with our own tariffs that will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impact here in Canada. And my government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect. We didn't ask for this fight. We didn't ask for this fight. But Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. So the Americans...
They should make no mistake, in trade as in hockey, Canada will win. On Trump's desire for territorial expansion, Carney said, America is not Canada, and Canada never, ever. will be part of America in any way, shape, or form. Once Carney is officially sworn in as Canada's 24th Prime Minister, he will fill a new cabinet, and may move to quickly call a general election that must be held by October 20th this year at the latest.
And the election is looking far more competitive than it once did. For the last couple of years, the ruling Liberals have been polling in a distant second place behind the opposition Conservatives that looked set to form the next government.
In fact, at the beginning of 2025, the Liberals were more than 20 points behind the Conservatives. However, Trump's return in the US and Trudeau's resignation from the Premiership have breathed life back into the Liberal Party and provided momentum that can't will be hoping to ride into the election. Recent polls show the Liberals having significantly narrowed the gap to just the single digits, indicating that neither the Liberals or Conservatives would be able to form a majority government.
You're listening to TLDR's Daily Briefing. If you want more explainers on what's happening in the world, then you should check out TLDR's other channels. Today we released a video on the US trade deficit, as well as our exclusive interview with the UK Prime Minister. You can find those videos linked in the description or show notes for this episode, or by searching for TLDR on YouTube or Nebula.
In news from Europe, Romania's far-right pro-Russian presidential candidate Kalin Georgescu has been banned from standing in this year's rerun of the 2024 presidential election due to ongoing criminal investigations. On Sunday, Romania's electoral bureau said it was investigating Georgescu's candidacy after it received objections relating to ongoing investigations against him.
Georgescu is under criminal investigation on six counts, including membership of a fascist organisation and false statements about campaign financing. The move to ban Georgescu is the latest development in Romania's complicated political crisis. This began in December, when the country's constitutional court annulled the results of the first round of the presidential election, which Georgescu had won with nearly 23% of the vote, over concerns of Russian interference.
Then, last month, US Vice President J.D. Vance made a speech in Munich accusing Europe of backsliding on democracy, specifically citing the annulment of Romania's election results. On Sunday, billionaire Elon Musk also posted on X, calling the decision to ban Georgescu crazy. Georgescu is now appealing the ban, with a final ruling expected on Wednesday.
However, the country's constitutional court is unlikely to reverse the ban, potentially opening up an opportunity for Romania's right-wing populist leader of the opposition, George Simian, to run in his place. In other news from the weekend, Polish and US officials have clashed on social media over the Starlink satellite used to provide internet connectivity to Ukraine and its military.
The debate started after Poland's foreign minister suggested that Ukraine may need an alternative to the Starlink satellite service, owned by Trump's ally Elon Musk, if it becomes unreliable. In response, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the Polish Foreign Minister of making things up, and said, and say thank you, because without Starlink, Ukraine would have lost this war long ago, and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now.
For his part, Musk later said on X that he would never switch off the Starlink satellite to Ukraine or quote, use it as a bargaining chip. On Monday morning, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk added his thoughts in a post on X, saying true leadership means respect for partners and allies, even for the smaller and weaker ones, never arrogance. Dear friends, think about it. Finally, US and Ukrainian delegations are preparing for talks in Saudi Arabia tomorrow on ending the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine is expected to propose a ceasefire in the air, at sea and on energy infrastructure, an idea first floated by French officials last week, for which it wants US backing. Meanwhile, the US is seeking a minerals deal with Ukraine, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made clear he's ready to sign. The US's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has said the US expects substantial progress and to quote
get down a framework for a peace agreement and an initial ceasefire as well. That's all for today, we'll be back with you tomorrow so make sure you're subscribed wherever you listen. In the meantime, you can check out our exclusive interview with the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on the TLDR UK channel. We've linked it in the podcast description or show notes for this episode.
This was a TLDR News production hosted by Ben Blissett, written by Rory Taylor and Georgina Findlay and produced by Scarlet Watchhorn. Thank you for listening and we'll be back again tomorrow.