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Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation on Monday, saying he would leave office once the ruling Liberal Party elects a new leader after months of declining poll numbers and internal division.

“I intend to step down as party leader, as prime minister, after the party has elected its next leader,” Trudeau, who has been in power since 2015, told reporters in Ottawa after a protracted political crisis in which leading Liberal allies urged him to resign urged.

It was not immediately clear how long Trudeau will remain in office as interim prime minister.

He said the Liberal leadership race will be “a robust, statewide, competitive process.”

That means Trudeau will continue to lead Canada when new U.S. President Donald Trump takes office this month and will be tasked with leading the country’s initial response to the new U.S. administration, including a possible trade war .

Trump has vowed to impose a 25 percent levy on all Canadian imports, which could prove devastating to the Canadian economy, and Trudeau has vowed to retaliate.

Trudeau’s support within the Liberal Party wavered for much of last year, but plunged to a new low after the surprise resignation of his former finance minister and deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, in December.

In a blistering resignation letter, Freeland accused Trudeau of focusing on political games to appease voters, including a costly Christmas tax holiday, rather than stabilizing Canada’s finances ahead of Trump’s promised tariffs.

Canadian media have named Freeland as a possible contender to take over the Liberal Party, along with former Bank of England governor Mark Carney, a Canadian who also previously led the Bank of Canada.

Lori Turnbull, a political science professor at Dalhousie University, said traditionally a Liberal leadership race would take four to six months, but this time “they have to be quicker.”

“If they don’t have a new leader in the next election, there’s no point,” she told AFP.

Trudeau’s Liberals are well behind the opposition Conservatives in the polls and barely survived three no-confidence votes in Parliament at the end of last year.

His minority government had been held up by a deal with the left-wing New Democratic Party, but in December the NDP said it would vote to oust Trudeau at the next opportunity.

Trudeau confirmed he had received permission from Canada’s governor general to suspend all parliamentary business until March 24.

This could give the Liberals time to choose a new leader while limiting the opposition’s chances of a no-confidence vote.

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