World
Chrystia Freeland, Justin Trudeau’s ‘Minister of Everything,’ Enters Race to Replace Him
Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s former deputy prime minister, whose sudden resignation in December helped set the stage for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to step down, said on Friday that she was running to replace him.
She posted her announcement on X with a six-word sentence: “I’m running to fight for Canada.”
Ms. Freeland, 56, once a close ally of Mr. Trudeau who was often called his “minister of everything,” had served as deputy prime minister since 2019, and had long been viewed as a possible successor.
But the two had a bitter rift when Mr. Trudeau moved to demote her over a Zoom call in December, offering her a minister-without-portfolio role. Instead, she opted to resign and delivered a strong rebuke of Mr. Trudeau’s leadership as Canada prepares to deal with President-elect Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump has threatened to apply a tariff on Canadian exports to the United States.
Her stinging departure destabilized Mr. Trudeau’s shaky grip on power. Three weeks later, on Jan. 6, he announced he would step down as Liberal Party leader and as prime minister once a new leader was in place.
Candidates for the leadership post will campaign ahead of a national vote among party members in March. The new Liberal Party leader will also become Prime Minister of Canada and lead the party in a general election expected to take place in the spring.
Ms. Freeland said she would officially launch her campaign in person on Sunday, which could take place in Toronto, the electoral district she represents in Parliament. She will face a stiff challenge persuading Canadians that she is the candidate best suited to take on the Conservative Party and its leader, Pierre Poilievre.
The Conservatives, who have a 25 percentage point lead over the Liberals in polls, have sought to portray Ms. Freeland as part of the problem given her once-close relationship with Mr. Trudeau and her key role in his governments since 2015, when he first became prime minister.
Mr. Trudeau’s popularity has nose dived in recent years as Canadians have become increasingly frustrated with persistently high cost-of-living on everything from housing to grocery bills.
Many Canadians have also started pushing back against the government’s immigration policy, which has resulted in 2.3 million people arriving in the country in the past two years. While the government said migrants were necessary to help fill gaps in low-skilled jobs, many Canadians say the new arrivals have contributed to rising housing costs and strains on the public health care system.
Ms. Freeland had accused Mr. Trudeau of engaging in political gimmickry after her ministry clashed with his office about a temporary sales-tax break during the end-of-year holidays.
The government estimated that the tax break, which covered items like restaurant bills and some toys and clothing, would cost about 1.6 billion Canadian dollars, or $1.1 billion, which Ms. Freeland said that Canada could “ill afford” at a time when Mr. Trump is raising the specter of tariffs.
“We need to take that threat extremely seriously,” Ms. Freeland said in her resignation letter. “That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war.”
Ms. Freeland was born and raised in Alberta and is of Ukrainian ancestry. She has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine on the global stage, denouncing Russia’s invasion.
She attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and worked as a journalist and newsroom leader at a number of news organizations, including the Financial Times and Reuters, before joining the Liberal Party in 2013. She is married to a reporter on the Culture desk of The New York Times and has three children.
During Mr. Trump’s first term, Ms. Freeland steered Canada’s renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Mexico, portraying steely confidence during the tense talks with the odd moment of levity. (Ms. Freeland was photographed arriving in Washington in 2018 wearing a white T-shirt that read “Keep Calm and Negotiate NAFTA.”)
But she also angered Mr. Trump during the negotiations and his animosity has apparently not waned.
When Ms. Freeland resigned in December, Mr. Trump posted triumphantly: “Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada. She will not be missed!!!”
Ms. Freeland, in an opinion piece published on Friday, hinted that Canada would retaliate in “the single largest trade blow the U.S. economy has ever endured.”
As finance minister, she spearheaded popular government programs to reduce the cost of day care for parents and to tackle childhood poverty.
Her announcement on Friday marks the second entry of a top contender in the Liberal Party leadership race. She will face off against Mark Carney, a former head of the central banks in Canada and England, who declared he was running on Thursday.
Mr. Carney is close friends with Ms. Freeland and is the godfather to one of her three children. He was being recruited by Mr. Trudeau’s team to take Ms. Freeland’s place in the government in December, but declined the job.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — a U.S.-backed group that has Israel’s stamp of approval — said it has started distributing aid to the Gaza Strip despite being the subject of controversy and questions.
GHF did not specify how many trucks of food it was dealing with but said that the supplies made it to its hubs and were being distributed throughout the Strip. The organization also said there would be more trucks arriving on Wednesday.
“As part of the ongoing efforts to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, four aid distribution centers were established in recent weeks, in accordance with the directive of the political echelon and in close coordination with the United States,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.
Gazans are seen going to and from an aid collection spot. (Amit Segal)
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“Every day, thousands of Gazans will be able to come here, reach this third party and get the aid directly. We hope this will end Hamas’ abuse of the aid coming into Gaza, Hamas’s abuse of the people of Gaza, and that the people of Gaza will be able to receive the aid directly,” IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said in a video about the aid.
The organization received considerable scrutiny before its distribution began, as well as a potentially major hurdle: just hours before it started distributing aid, the head of the organization resigned.
Jake Woods, who was the executive director of the GHF, resigned on Monday, citing the organization’s inability to “adhere to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”
“I urge Israel to significantly expand the provision of aid into Gaza through all mechanisms, and I urge all stakeholders to continue to explore innovative new methods for the delivery of aid, without delay, diversion, or discrimination,” Woods said in a statement obtained by Fox News. “I continue to believe the only sustainable path for the long-term is for Hamas to release all hostages, for there to be a cessation of hostilities, and a pathway for peace, security, and dignity for all people in the region.”
Humanitarian aid to be distributed to the people of Gaza. (IDF Spokesperson’s Office)
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Prior to Woods’ resignation, GHF faced criticism over its distribution plan, which involved the aid arriving at hubs that are guarded by armed contractors, according to The Associated Press. The outlet also reported that the four hubs being set up are all close to Israeli military positions, saying that three are “far south where few Palestinians are located.”
The Associated Press reported that GHF said the flow of supplies to Palestinians in Gaza would be “increasing each day.”
Woods is not alone in his concern about GHF’s independence and impartiality, as the organization has faced backlash over Israel’s support for the organization. The United Nations and aid groups have voiced criticism of GHF.
Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip on Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
A spokesperson from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told Reuters that GHF is “a distraction from what is actually needed.”
“Our position remains firm: as Tom Fletcher, the under-secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs, told the Security Council the other week, this is a distraction. Aid operations must be in line with the humanitarian principles and must be scaled up to stave off famine and meet the needs of all civilians, where they are in the Strip,” OCHA spokesperson Eri Kaneko told Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department and the Red Cross for comment, but they did not immediately respond.
Trey Yingst contributed to this report.
Russia and Ukraine have launched a wave of drone attacks against each other overnight, even as Moscow claimed it was finalising a peace proposal to end the war.
Ukrainian air force officials said on Tuesday that Russia deployed 60 drones across multiple regions through the night, injuring 10 people. Kyiv’s air defences intercepted 43 of them – 35 were shot down while eight were diverted using electronic warfare systems.
In Dnipropetrovsk, central Ukraine, Governor Serhiy Lysak reported damage to residential properties and an agricultural site after Russian drones led to fires during the night. In Kherson, a southern city frequently hit by Russian strikes, a drone attack on Tuesday morning wounded a 59-year-old man and six municipal workers, officials said.
The barrage came days after Ukraine endured one of the heaviest aerial offensives of the war. On Sunday night alone, Ukraine’s air force claimed Russia launched 355 drones, a record number.
That escalation prompted United States President Donald Trump to declare that Vladimir Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY” and to threaten new sanctions. The Kremlin brushed off the remarks, accusing Trump of suffering from “emotional overload”.
Russia said on Tuesday that its huge aerial assaults in recent days were a “response” to escalating Ukrainian drone attacks on its own civilians, accusing Kyiv of trying to “disrupt” peace efforts.
“Kyiv, with the support of some European countries, has taken a series of provocative steps to thwart negotiations initiated by Russia,” the Russian Ministry of Defence said in a statement.
The ministry said its forces had shot down 99 Ukrainian drones on Tuesday, including 56 over the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine.
It claimed that from May 20 to 27, air defence units intercepted more than 2,300 Ukrainian drones – 1,465 of them outside active conflict zones.
Russia seizes more territory
In a further setback for Kyiv, Russian troops have captured four villages in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, the local governor confirmed on Tuesday.
Oleh Hryhorov said Novenke, Basivka, Veselivka and Zhuravka were now under Russian control, though civilians had already been evacuated. “The enemy is continuing attempts to advance with the aim of setting up a so-called ‘buffer zone’,” he wrote on Facebook.
Russia’s Defence Ministry also claimed it had taken the nearby village of Bilovody, pointing to further advances near the border.
Though Moscow’s main offensive remains in Donetsk, its push into Sumy shows how Russian forces are stretching Ukraine’s army thin across multiple fronts.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned again this week that new Russian offensives were likely in Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Russian troops have been attacking in small groups on motorcycles, backed by drones. Ukrainian forces say they’re holding the line and targeting enemy positions with precision fire.
Military blog DeepState reported over the weekend that Russia now holds about 62.6 sq km (24 square miles) in the region – the first time it has secured a strip of border villages there.
Last month, a Russian missile killed 36 people in the city of Sumy.
Europe undermining peace talks, says Russia
Amid new territorial gains and escalating violence, Russia has shifted blame for the lack of diplomatic progress onto European leaders.
Putin met Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday to discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine, according to a source from Turkiye’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Fidan also met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday as part of his two-day trip to Moscow.
During the meeting, Lavrov took aim at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, suggesting his recent comments on Ukraine’s use of Western weapons for strikes deep inside Russia reveal that the decision to greenlight such attacks was made long before it was made public.
Lavrov said Merz’s statement was telling – not only for what it implied about policy but for what it revealed about the current crop of Western leaders.
“This shows what sort of people have come to power in key European countries,” Lavrov said.
Merz had earlier stated that weapons supplied to Kyiv by the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the US were no longer bound by range restrictions, clearing the path for deeper attacks into Russian territory.
On Tuesday, while on an official visit to Finland, Merz said Western allies had lifted restrictions on the range of weapons sent to Ukraine. He warned the war could drag on, citing Russia’s refusal to engage in meaningful talks. “We may have to prepare for a longer duration,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, Moscow accused Ukraine and its European allies of deliberately undermining efforts to revive peace talks. “Since 20 May, Ukraine has ramped up strikes on Russian territory using Western-supplied weapons, deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure,” it said.
Direct talks between Russia and Ukraine resumed on May 16 – the first in more than three years – but failed to result in a ceasefire. Russia has since insisted it is working on a serious draft agreement to end hostilities.
“This is a serious draft, a draft of a serious document that demands careful checks and preparation,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, adding it had not yet been submitted.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the draft would lay out key terms for a political settlement and potential ceasefire, and would be presented to Kyiv once finalised.
Moscow has accused Ukraine of escalating attacks in recent days to derail the negotiations. In response to media reports about possible new US sanctions, Peskov claimed Washington was trying to sabotage the diplomatic process.
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