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In speech at World Economic Forum, prime minister fails to acknowledge that China and Russia walked away from international rules-based order years ago
Prime Minister Mark Carney delivers a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick /THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Mark Carney was giving a speech in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum, but he had two audiences. The first was the domestic audience of voters at home in Canada, the second was an audience of one who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW in Washington, DC — AKA the White House.
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Carney was clear, the former order that governed the world is over and he’s not looking back.
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“We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just,” Carney said.
There are things to applaud in his speech and things to be worried about.
Middle powers must unite: PM
First off, he spoke about how middle powers, which Canada once was, can work together to try to shape the world.
“The middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” Carney said.
It’s a good sound bite but also sounds like a slogan, the kind that Carney formerly railed against. Carney said that when middle powers negotiate with global giants, they are at a disadvantage.
“This is not sovereignty. It’s the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination in a world of great power rivalry,” he said.
Much of his speech was about the great power rivalry that is happening between the United States, Russia and China. The problem is that he was highly critical in the Americans walking away from the international rules-based order while not acknowledging that China and Russia walked away from it years if not decades ago.
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“The rules-based order is fading,” Carney said.
‘Great power rivalry’
“It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”
This is all accurate, but listening to Carney’s speech in full, his comments at this point were clearly aimed at the United States. He wasn’t talking about China or Russia, he was talking about the Trump administration in Washington.
Sure, the Russians took Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and did a full invasion in 2022. And yes, China has been occupying Tibet for decades and has oppressed Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang district of the company, but let’s be worried about the Americans.
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As American Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pointed out at Davos, the Europeans have not stopped buying Russian oil and gas even as Putin wages war against Ukraine.
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The big problem with Carney’s speech is that he described the Americans as abandoning from the rules-based order while never acknowledging that both China and Russia did the same years if not decades ago. A big part of why Trump was elected is that he promised not to let China and Russia grow at the expense of America.
Carney then stated that the rules-based order was dead due to the Americans.
“Stop invoking the rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is, a system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using economic integration as coercion,” Carney said.
The problem is, his warning against the United States would more likely be applied to China. Carney has decided to align our country with China rather than the United States and that is unlikely to play well for us long term.
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