“We’ve recognized from the start that America has changed. We recognize that sometimes its signature is written in pencil.”
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“We’ve recognized from the start that America has changed. We recognize that sometimes its signature is written in pencil.”
“We’ve recognized from the start that America has changed. We recognize that sometimes its signature is written in pencil.”
It has been seven months since Mark Carney rose to the podium in Davos, Switzerland, and bluntly declared that the traditional U.S.-led rules-based international order is over, and that it had been replaced by an era of great power rivalries and economic coercion.
The prime minister’s January speech, which talked of a “rupture” in global dynamics, intimated that countries like the United States were weaponizing economic integration to force smaller economies to their will.
It served as an extraordinary call to arms for middle powers to band together and build coalitions and cross-continental partnerships with like-minded governments instead. Carney also advised countries to insulate their economies and build domestic resilience. In effect, he was exhorting world leaders to build a counterweight to superpower dominance.
“When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself,” he said.
It was an extraordinary address, one that had reverberations around the world in the weeks that followed. But it was only in the last few days that we have fully seen the realization of Carney’s “value-based realism” in his decision to end trade negotiations with the United States late Friday night, and take Canada to war.
An economic war, certainly, but one that has no less real-world consequences when it comes to our fiscal and political resolve. “Dollar-for-dollar” retaliatory measures by Canada are expected to be announced in the coming days.