A former journalist and now senior government minister - dubbed a "nasty woman" by Donald Trump after taking a beating in trade talks with the United States - has announced she will run for leadership of Canada's ailing Liberal party.

Chrystia Freeland announced her intention to become the next Liberal leader and the country's next prime minister in a social media post on Friday, with plans to officially launch her campaign in Toronto on Sunday.

“I am running to fight for Canada,” she wrote.

Freeland resigned as the country's finance minister last month, sparking the current leadership contest after she clashed with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over how to deal with the looming threat of U.S. tariffs. She issued a scathing rebuke of the prime minister amid growing calls for him to step down. A few weeks later, he resigned.

But as Canada prepares for a trade war with the United States, it's unclear how Freeland's relationship with the incoming U.S. president will help or hurt her candidacy in Canada, where political leaders of all stripes are calling for unity and strength country. reply.

In a column published in the Toronto Star on Friday, Freeland laid out her plan to fight back against Trump.

"Being strong means making it clear to our American neighbors: We love our country as much as you love yours. If you hit us, we will fight back. We will not escalate, but we will never back down," she wrote, adding that Canada's response to the tariffs would be "precisely and painfully" targeted.

“Orange growers in Florida, dishwasher manufacturers in Michigan and dairy farmers in Wisconsin: get ready. Canada is the largest export market for the U.S.—bigger than China, Japan, the United Kingdom, and France combined. If pushed, our response would be the largest trade hit the U.S. economy has ever suffered."

During the 2018 NAFTA renegotiation, Freeland sparred with U.S. negotiators, prompting Trump to tell reporters: "We're very unhappy with Canada's negotiating and negotiating style -- we don't like their representatives very much."

The US president-elect welcomed her resignation last month: "Her behavior is completely toxic and not conducive to reaching a deal that benefits very dissatisfied Canadian citizens. She will not be missed!!!"

In geography-obsessed Canada, where politicians are seen to draw cultural and even moral values ​​from their homelands, Freeland positions herself as a "proud daughter" of Peace River, a small community in Alberta's conservative heartland agricultural community.

Freeland, 56, a graduate of Harvard and Oxford universities, spent her early career as a globe-trotting journalist covering the collapse of the Soviet Union - before she was banned from entering Russia.

She comes from the Ukrainian diaspora, having settled and farmed the Canadian prairies for generations, and became a staunch supporter of Kiev after the full-scale Russian invasion. As prime minister, Freeland is likely to continue Canada's support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

After leaving Moscow, she eventually returned to North America via Toronto and New York, where she held senior editorial positions at The Globe and Mail, the Financial Times and Thomson Reuters.

In 2013, Trudeau, then the new Liberal leader, pursued Freeland and begged her to leave the media and enter politics.

After winning her seat in Toronto, Freeland quickly rose to ministerial posts in Trudeau's government. Before being promoted to finance minister, she served as foreign minister and also served as deputy prime minister and minister of intergovernmental affairs.

Freeland has long been considered one of Justin Trudeau's closest allies, but in December she was fired as finance minister over Trudeau's plans to oust her as finance minister and his response to Trump's protectionist trade threats. And broke with Trudeau. Freeland dismissed Trudeau's pledge to temporarily halt certain taxes and mail checks to citizens as an "expensive political stunt" and suggested he didn't understand the "seriousness of the moment."

If Freeland wins when the party announces the winner of the leadership race on March 9, she will become the second Canadian to be promoted from deputy prime minister to prime minister, after Jean Chrétien. She will also become the second female prime minister in the country's history.

Considered highly insightful and outspoken, she was known for writing notes on her hands, with reporters and officials often trying to decipher the scrawls.

Recent polls have shown her as the narrow favorite to win the party leadership race, and a survey by the Angus Reid Institute found that for voters who haven't ruled out voting Liberal at the upcoming election, Mrs. Leland was "the most attractive candidate." Abacus Data found she is by far the most popular candidate among Canadians: 51 per cent can recognize her from the photo.

Her main challenge in the general election is portraying herself as someone different from Trudeau, given how closely they work together.

Despite Trump's frustration with Freeland, she has forged strong relationships within Canada across party and ideological lines.

"I absolutely love Chrystia Freeland. She's fantastic. I would have her back," conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford said when he was appointed finance minister in 2020.

Even her American counterpart in trade negotiations, Robert Lighthizer, called her a "good friend."

A dozen Liberals in parliament expressed support for her. One congressman, Randy Boissonnault, told The Globe and Mail that Freeland "won't need any training wheels" in engaging with Trump in the coming months.

Winnipeg MP Kevin Lamoureux said in a video posted on Instagram that her savvy as a negotiator made her the best choice.

"I ultimately believe that there is no one in the House of Commons today... who understands the importance of trade and who has negotiated as many deals as she has."