Can opposites attract? Mark Carney represents everything Trump hates

Telegraph

15-03-2025

On the day after Mark Carney was sworn in as Canada's 24th – and, he will be hoping, not final – prime minister at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, the official residence of the governor general of Canada, the continent of North America now holds its breath. Carney has little time to luxuriate in the satisfaction of his first ever job in politics being as leader of the second largest country in the world. Nor can he embark on a victory tour. He won't even have time to celebrate his 60th birthday on Sunday.
Instead, he has a noise complaint from the brash resident downstairs to deal with – and given the state of relations, as well as an impending general election, he'd better get to it as soon as possible. Because the ballroom at Rideau Hall may be vast, but it could barely contain the elephant in it on Friday: Donald J Trump, conquistador-in-chief, troll of the century, neighbour from hell.
Trump's occasional talk of annexing Canada, making it the USA's 51st state, continues every few days, when he remembers. Tit-for-tat tariffs between the two countries persist, as does an almost unprecedented level of tough talk, by Canadian standards anyway, in the face of naked aggression from the Maga camp.
And so Carney has to do something about it. 'To win the next election, the new prime minister must quickly prove he is Canada's best hope of managing relations with the White House,' so reckoned Politico this weekend. It sounds simple, when you put it like that. It's a little more difficult when you take into account that Carney represents absolutely everything Trump detests in a politician.
Carney has said his first foreign visits will be to Europe, rather than 550 miles south to Washington DC. But sooner rather than later, he'll have to address the elephant in the room in person, and put his fabled technocratic charm to the test. Will they (get on), then, or won't they? Let's compare and contrast.
Interpersonal style, and general vibe
We're off to a bad start here, if the mission is to prospect for common ground. Carney is considered dull even by people who mean to pay him a compliment. This week Daniel Béland, the director of the Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University, described him as 'a boring guy who, in general, doesn't have a lot of charisma.' But that's no bad thing, he added, given it lends Carney 'the image of a reassuring guy who knows what he is talking about.'
Whatever you make of Trump's politics, 'boring', 'uncharismatic', 'reassuring' and 'knows what he's talking about' are not words or phrases that ever appear in the same sentence as his name. Ultimately, Trump is a bombastic former real estate mogul turned minor TV star who muscled his way into politics through sheer force of personality.
His personal life is a soap opera, his attitude to the truth nonchalant, and his moral compass forever broken. He abhors 'the establishment', has no interest in etiquette and the natural order of things, and nothing, but nothing, is ever his fault. America first, but Trump firster – which is a word you can imagine him using, actually.
Carney, on the other hand, is a Harvard graduate who made a fortune as an investment banker before becoming deputy governor of the Bank of Canada in 2003. He became governor of the central bank in 2008, aged 42, steering the country through the financial crisis. George Osborne called him 'the outstanding central banker of his generation', and lusted after him so much that he made him the first foreign governor of the Bank of England.
Carney is a Davos man, an ardent globalist and a committed environmentalist. 'Communicate clearly, frequently and honestly,' he advised in his 2021 book Value(s): Building a Better World For All. 'You can't spin your way out of a crisis. The truth will come out.' Oh dear.
Common ground rating: 0/10
Politics, or what we can make out
Things don't get a lot better here. 'We respect President Trump – President Trump has put some very important issues at the top of his agenda. We understand his agenda,' Carney said on Friday, after being sworn in.
He has worked with Trump at international meetings, he pointed out: 'In many respects, part of my experience overlaps with that of the president – we're both looking out for our countries. But he knows, and I know from long experience, that we can find mutual solutions that win for both.'
Trouble is, they barely see eye to eye on anything in politics. Carney's a staunch defender of the kind of multilateral order Trump spends much of his time seeking to destroy. His focus on climate policies is entirely out of step with Trump's 'drill, baby drill' preference.
And over the last decade, their attitudes to deal-making have been laid bare. Take Brexit as an example: 'I would say [the UK is] better off without [the EU], personally, but I'm not making that as a recommendation, just my feeling,' Trump famously said.
During the protracted negotiation period, Trump later accused Theresa May of 'wrecking Brexit' and insisted 'I think that the UK allowed the European Union to have all the cards. And it is very hard to play well when one side has all the advantage.'
Carney, meanwhile, was a bête noire of the Brexiteers, with his risk aversion throwing spanners in the works of trade deals, deregulation and best laid plans. As a central banker, he acted as if saying anything interesting on the record might have killed him. Afterwards, he said what he really thought.
'Some Right-wing populists see current anxieties as an opportunity to stoke anger because anger is what's necessary for their project. After all, people don't demolish things when they are positive or optimistic,' Carney said last year. 'I know this from my time in the UK, where, for years, the rallying cry of Brexiteers has broken Britain, and their solution to 'Take back control' was actually code for tear down your future.'
Common ground rating: 2/10
Daily routine
As governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney would begin each day by repeating to himself a phrase from Marcus Aurelius: 'Arise to do the work of humankind.' There hasn't been time to put the comment request to the White House press team, but it feels safe to say that Donald Trump does not do this. He probably thinks Marcus Aurelius is the guy Russell Crowe played in Gladiator.
It's too early to say how Trump's routine has changed since he returned to the White House, but in his first term it read like this: awake at 5.30am after four or five hours of sleep, rarely any breakfast, then a good five hours of social media and Fox News (or 'executive time', as it was put) before starting the work of the day at 11am.
He'd have a business lunch, then some more 'executive time' and often make space for a round of golf. When his day quietens at 6.30pm, he has dinner. Favourites include well-done steaks, meatloaf and Diet Coke.
So to Carney, after he's risen to do the work of humankind. The first thing is a long run. Then to work. On his first day at the Bank of England in 2013, he arrived at Threadneedle Street by Tube, shortly before 7am, beating most of the camera crews and photographers who hoped to catch him arriving. He thought little of working on Sundays, meditated when he was busy ('trust me, it creates time') and earned a reputation as 'no-nonsense, demanding and strategic.'
Carney's favourite food is pizza; unlike Trump, he drinks alcohol, once sharing beers with the press gallery and occasionally a martini; he loves Bake Off; and he cooks for his four children, once offering a masterclass for grilling Bistecca Fiorentina, a Tuscan steak dish, to chef Ruth Rogers on the River Café podcast. Trump has yet to appear on the show, so we do not know how his Bistecca Fiorentina recipe compares.
Common ground rating: 3/10
Leisure pursuits
Trump likes golf, we know that much. He played 261 rounds of golf in his first term, but there seem to be fewer this time around, so perhaps Elon Musk doesn't allow it.
As for his other pursuits… does posting online count? Does anybody think he reads for pleasure? He never seems to go hunting with his sons, or shopping with his daughters. He dances, particularly if the Village People are in the building, but it's difficult to imagine him doing that in private.
Wrestling might count. He's a long-time fan of WWE, has notorious friends all over the MMA-sphere, and has taken part in Wrestlemania multiple times, including shaving the head of WWE co-founder Vince McMahon in the ring during 'Battle of the Billionaires' in 2011.
Carney has yet to shave a billionaire's head live on television, which is something he ought to correct. Instead, the former ice hockey player runs marathons, and quickly: 3 hours and 31 minutes for the London Marathon a decade ago, which is seven minutes faster than Harry Styles did the Tokyo Marathon earlier this month. Trump's marathon time is unknown.
Away from running, banking, meditation, cooking and being handsome, Carney's other great love is for a music festival.
A noted fan of indie music and British punk, during his tenure in London, he was often spotted at posh Cotswolds festival Wilderness, sometimes with glitter on his face.
Common ground rating: 1/10
Other halves
Carney met his wife, Diana, while studying at Oxford. She's an economist and author who was born into a wealthy pig farming family. Her sister Tania married hereditary peer Robin Cayzer, 3rd Baron Rotherwick, in 2000 (they have since split).
She has worked all over the world, often on climate change policies, and has served on the boards of various institutions. Rarely in the spotlight, she was burned early on after tweeting a link to a story about then French president François Hollande scaling back a proposal that would have seen higher taxes on the ultra-rich.
That plan had caused France's ultra-rich to flee for London, decreasing the supply of high-end homes. According to multiple media reports, she wrote: 'Maybe I'll be able to find a place to live in London after all.' At the time, the Carneys had a near-£5,000 a week housing allowance.
Melania Trump, who famously doesn't care about what people think, would possibly enjoy that incident. And so might Trump, who'd agree that £5,000 a week is not enough. Otherwise the two women are fairly distinct. Melania, the daughter of a travelling car salesman from Slovenia, was an international model, who once posed nude for Playboy. Diana is more likely to appear as a centrefold in The Economist, offering a thoughtful analysis on carbon offsetting.
Trump, it should be said, likes a wife: he complimented Victoria Starmer, calling her 'beautiful' and insisting he is 'very impressed'. And the two couples could always talk children, too. Trump has five, that we know of, while Carney has four daughters: Cleo, Tess, Amelia and Sasha. They joined him on stage recently. 'Without your support, I wouldn't be standing here,' he said to his family during his acceptance speech. 'Without your examples, I wouldn't have a purpose. Without your love, I wouldn't have the strength that I need for what lies ahead.'
Trump doesn't quite talk about his family like that, but they know what he means.
Common ground rating: 6/10
Clashing fashions
'The George Clooney of central banking' is how Carney was always sold. To his credit, he retorted that the bar was not a particularly high one. When he arrived in London, he was thought to be a 'rock star' of economics, which tells you everything you need to know about that industry, given he just wore nicely cut dark suits and had short, grey-flecked hair.
But compared to previous governors, here was a suave, cosmopolitan, slick figure unafraid of appearing in the Royal Box at Wimbledon and talking about quantitative easing in a manner that could almost be seductive. Like Clooney, he stuck to suits, unless chillaxing at festivals, where he wore shorts and polo shirts, or on one occasion – Glittergate, let's call it – a bizarre shirt with an inexplicable under-shirt seemingly composed from multiple other shirts.
Dark suits or polo shirts, rarely anything else? Well, now we're talking. Like a character from The Simpsons, Trump has just one instantly identifiable outfit – navy suit, comically long red tie – and one alternative outfit: white golfing polo shirt, red hat. Folks, I think we've found something they might be able to talk about.