TORONTO >> Chrystia Freeland, whose abrupt resignation as finance minister last month forced Justin Trudeau’s exit as prime minister, said she is running to be the next leader of the Liberal Party and prime minister of Canada.

Freeland said Friday in a statement posted on X that she will officially launch her campaign on Sunday.

She also released an opinion piece in which she called for economic retaliation if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump follows through with his threat to impose tariffs on all Canadian products.

“If President Trump imposes 25 percent tariffs, our counterpunch must be dollar-for-dollar — and it must be precisely and painfully targeted,” Freeland wrote in the Toronto Star.

“Florida orange growers, Michigan dishwasher manufacturers and Wisconsin dairy farmers: brace yourselves. Canada is America’s largest export market — bigger than China, Japan, the U.K., and France combined. If pushed, our response will be the single largest trade blow the U.S. economy has ever endured,” she added. Freeland announced her resignation from Trudeau’s Cabinet on Dec. 16, criticizing some of Trudeau’s economic priorities in the face of Trump’s tariff threats. The move stunned the country and raised questions about how much longer the increasingly unpopular Trudeau could stay in his job.

Trudeau announced on Jan. 6 that he would resign, though he will remain prime minister until a new Liberal Party leader is chosen on March 9. The front-runners for the Liberal Party leadership are Freeland and former Bank of England Gov. Mark Carney. The next Liberal leader could be the shortest-tenured prime minister in the country’s history. All three opposition parties have vowed to bring down the Liberals’ minority government with a no-confidence vote in March.