OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney on Sunday called early elections for April 28, pledging to defeat Donald Trump’s drive to annex the United States’ huge northern neighbour.

Carney, a former central banker, was chosen by Canada’s centrist Liberal Party to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister, but he has never faced the country’s broader electorate.

That will now change as Carney brought parliamentary elections forward several months from October, and he made it clear that the barrage of trade and sovereignty threats coming from the US president will be the focus of his campaign.

“I’ve just requested that the governor general dissolve parliament and call an election for April 28. She has agreed,” Carney said in a speech to the nation, referring to King Charles III’s representative in Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth.

In power for a decade, the Liberal government had slid into deep unpopularity, but Carney will be hoping to ride a wave of Canadian patriotism to a new majority.

“I’m asking Canadians for a strong, positive mandate to deal with President Trump,” Carney said, adding that the Republican “wants to break us, so America can own us. We will not let that happen.”

Trump has riled his northern neighbour by repeatedly dismissing its borders as artificial, and urging it to join the United States as the 51st state.

The ominous remarks have been accompanied by Trump’s trade war, with the imposition of tariffs on imports from Canada threatening to severely damage its economy.

Trudeau was deeply unpopular when he announced he was stepping down, with Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives seen as election favourites just weeks ago.

Carney will kick off his campaign on Monday on Canada’s Atlantic coast in Labrador and Newfoundland, while Poilievre will be in the country’s biggest city, Toronto.

As for the US leader, he professes not to care, while pushing ahead with plans to further strengthen tariffs against Canada and other major trading partners on April 2.

“I don’t care who wins up there,” Trump said last week.