In January, Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau will face off against its greatest challenge to date: a Trump presidency. When it comes to US relations, few countries have as much at stake as Canada – last year saw nearly three-quarters of Canada’s exports head to the US while some 400,000 people a day cross the shared border. 

And while Trump promises to take protectionist and anti-immigration measures to protect American jobs, Trudeau tries to take an opposite approach. 

“What we’re facing right now – in terms of the rise of populism and divisive and fearful narratives around the world – it’s based around the fact that globalisation doesn’t seem to be working for the middle class, for ordinary people,” the Canadian prime minister said in an recent interview with The Guardian. “And this is something that we identified years ago and built an entire platform and agenda for governing on.” 

Trudeau – a former high school teacher and snowboarding instructor –  won the national elections last year and his party holds the majority in the government. They promised an ambitious platform that included addressing growing inequality and creating real change for the country’s middle class.

“Quite frankly if we can show – as we are working very hard to demonstrate – that you can have engaged global perspectives and growth that works for everyone … then that diffuses a lot of the uncertainty, the anger, the populism that is surfacing in different pockets of the world.”

Read the full interview with Justin Trudeau in The Guardian.