In a strong rebuke of American actions and policies under President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said “great powers” have started using tariffs as weapons, and that the old order is not coming back. Carney said this while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos and added that the rules-based order was partially false.
Here’s what Canada PM Mark Carney said
“Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. The old order is not coming back,” said Carney. “We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false,” Carney said.
He further added, “That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. This fiction was useful — and American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods. But this bargain no longer works.”
He also added that the recent crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have exposed the dangers of deep global interdependence. “Great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited,” he said.
Carney says Canada must pursue principled and pragmatic strategy
Speaking in a provocative address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Carney said the old assumptions underpinning the rules-based international order no longer hold.
Carney said Canada must now pursue a “principled and pragmatic” strategy — strengthening domestic capacity while diversifying trade ties to reduce reliance on any single partner. He also highlighted that multilateral institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the United Nations have been weakened, forcing countries to operate more independently.
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