Before becoming Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney had a distinguished career in both the public and private sectors. He served as governor of Bank of Canada and later as governor of Bank of England, making him the first non-Briton to hold the latter position. He was also a senior executive at US investment bank Goldman Sachs, gaining extensive experience in global finance.
Upon assuming office as the 24th prime minister of Canada in March 2025, Carney faced significant challenges, particularly in managing relations with the United States. He was immediately confronted with increasing pressures from the US, which had begun to pursue a more unilateral foreign-policy stance, challenging the traditional approach to cross-border collaboration.
As US President Donald Trump publicly called for Canada to become the 51st US state, Carney had to assert Canada’s unwavering commitment to its sovereignty.
This clash was followed by another pressing issue: the imposition of new US tariffs threatening Canada’s economic stability. These tariffs strained bilateral relations as they targeted key sectors such as aluminium, steel, and agricultural products. The Canadian government had to respond by seeking to diversify its trade partnerships and strengthen its domestic industries.
At the meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland this year, Carney spoke from the heart and told it for what it is. In his speech, he rethought Canada’s alliances and asked for greater collaboration amongst the world’s middle powers to resist the domination of the larger nations.
He began by addressing “the rupture in the world order,” a fundamental change that has hit the world stage hard. He argued that the “rules‑based international order” has fractured beyond repair. Then he urged the middle powers, including Canada, to stop “living within a lie” about the state of global governance and instead build new coalitions capable of resisting economic pressure from the major powers.
Carney said that Canadians had old, comfortable assumptions that alliances can protect them, can defy uncertainty, and can confer prosperity. But this is no longer the case, he said.
He thus defied the accepted status quo, saying that the rules-based order was false. Today, the situation was “that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim,” he said. Countries in such a situation have tried “to go along to get along… to hope that compliance will provide safety,” he added.
He described the current global order as a “fiction” and said that the great powers are using “economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.”
“You cannot ‘live within the lie’ of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination,” he said.
His speech emphasised how Canadians should become part of something bigger; how the prosperity of one nation is tied with the prosperity and security of others and that all members of any alliance are equal and cannot and should not stand against one another.
More importantly, he also called for the world’s middle powers to build a new order that embodies their values, such as “respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty, and the territorial integrity of states.”
However, the middle powers cannot afford to go it alone. They neither have the market size, the military capacity, or the leverage to dictate terms. And when “we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating. This is not sovereignty. It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.”
Though the picture Carney presented was bleak, he also said that the middle powers “are not powerless”. By forging new alliances, they will avoid coercion from the superpowers, he said. They will, indeed, have their own powers. “We have something too – the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together. That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently.”
Carney stressed that change is in the making, and that the old order is not coming back. “We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.” However, from this rupture, the middle powers can build something better, stronger, and more just by uniting to create a new impactful path, he said.
This was a speech like no other and a blow to existing parameters. Addressing the same audience at Davos, Trump then rebuked Carney. “Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way. They should be grateful also, but they’re not,” he said.
“I watched your prime minister yesterday; he wasn’t so grateful. But they should be grateful to us. Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements,” Trump said.
Trump later withdrew his invitation to Canada to serve on the Board of Peace in Gaza. His tweet said, “please let this Letter serve to represent that the Board of Peace is withdrawing its invitation to you regarding Canada’s joining what will be the most prestigious Board of leaders ever assembled, at any time.”
A new world order is emerging.
The writer is a former professor of communication who is based in Vancouver, Canada.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 29 January, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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