Carney stands behind Greenland, calls for criticism of allies who resort to economic coercion

Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday that middle powers must stop pretending the rules-based international order is still functioning and instead build coalitions to survive.

He urged countries to start condemning economic coercion, even when practised by a great power ally – a clear reference to the United States.

The Prime Minister’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tuesday follows an extraordinary threat by President Donald Trump to impose tariffs on European allies and Britain until Washington is allowed to acquire Greenland for strategic purposes.

The future of Greenland and the division this has sown among Western allies is dominating talk in Davos. While Mr. Carney’s remarks were aimed at discussing the fallout from Mr. Trump’s disruptive and protectionist tenure as president, he only named the United States once in the speech when he cited “American hegemony.”

What are the EU’s options to counter U.S. on Greenland?

As one example of middle powers working together, Mr. Carney said Canada stands firmly committed to the collective defence of Greenland under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future,” the Prime Minister said.

“Our commitment to Article Five is unwavering,” he said, referring to the collective defence chapter in the NATO treaty that states an armed attack against one or more members in Europe or North America is considered an attack against all.

Speaking at Davos, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand declined to say whether Canada will send troops to Greenland in support of the Danish territory.

“We regularly participate in NATO exercises, and we participate in exercises that the Canadian Armed Forces itself leads,” she said. “Regarding future deployments and future exercises, those are decisions that the Minister of National Defense makes, together with the chief of defense staff.”

The rules-based international order is the post-Second World War system of global governance built on international law, norms, treaties and institutions such as the United Nations and World Trade Organization. It calls for the respect of state sovereignty, peaceful dispute resolution, free trade, human rights, and co-operation on challenges such as security and climate.

Mr. Carney invoked Czech writer Václav Havel, a dissident who later entered political life, to frame his argument about how middle powers are propping up the lie that the rules-based order still works.

For decades, he said, America as a superpower delivered benefits for many middle powers, such as open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for dispute resolution frameworks.

This is changing, the Prime Minister said, without mentioning the United States by name.

“More recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited,” he said.

Just as Mr. Havel described Soviet-era shopkeepers placing signs with Communist slogans in their windows to avoid trouble, participating in rituals they knew to be false, Mr. Carney argued that middle powers have similarly gone along with the fiction of a rules-based order that no longer protects them.

It is time for countries “to take their signs down,” the Prime Minister said.

“Stop invoking the rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised,” Mr. Carney said. “Call the system what it is: a period of intensifying great power rivalry where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as a weapon of coercion.”

His sharpest words Tuesday were reserved for countries that only selectively criticize economic coercion.

“Apply the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window.”

On Tuesday, as he prepared to head to the World Economic Forum, Mr. Trump posted a photo of himself sitting in the Oval Office talking to European leaders that had been altered to show a map of the Western Hemisphere with American flags covering not only the United States but also Greenland, Canada, Cuba and Venezuela.

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Mr. Carney, who last week struck a new strategic partnership with China’s authoritarian leadership, championed in his Davos speech what he called “values-based realism” – a term borrowed from Finnish President Alexander Stubb – combining principled commitments to sovereignty and human rights with pragmatic engagement in a fragmented world.

Mr. Carney’s central argument was that middle powers must combine their strength rather than compete for favour with great powers.

“If you are not at the table, you are on the menu,” Mr. Carney warned. “When we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered. This is not sovereignty. It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.”

The Prime Minister said middle powers need to build new institutions between them, strengthen their domestic economies, diversify their trade internationally and work together in coalitions, not bilaterally, when dealing with great powers.

“Rather than waiting for a great power to restore an order it is dismantling, create institutions and agreements that function as described,” he said.

“This is not naive multilateralism. Nor is it relying on diminished institutions. It is building the coalitions that work, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together,” he said.

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Separately, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the economic coercion Mr. Trump is threatening to acquire Greenland is a mistake and warned the European Union’s response would be “unflinching, united and proportional.”

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ms. von der Leyen pushed back against Mr. Trump’s threats of 10-per-cent tariffs on European allies, as well as Britain, until he is allowed to annex Greenland – and his warning that levies would rise to 25 per cent in June.

Mr. Trump, who has said there is “no going back” on taking Greenland is due to arrive at the World Economic Forum Wednesday.

He has justified his demand to acquire Greenland by saying the strategically located island is vulnerable to takeover by China or Russia and that neither Denmark nor Greenlanders have the power to stop this.

Ms. von der Leyen said the EU shares the U.S. concern about safeguarding Greenland and is prepared to ramp up spending and protective measures there.

She said the “sovereignty and integrity” of Danish territory “is non-negotiable” and Brussels is working on a “massive European investment surge” in Greenland.

“We will work with Greenland and Denmark hand in hand to see how we can further support the local economy and infrastructure,” she said. “We will work with the U.S. and all partners on wider Arctic security.”