And he was honest, too, in describing the fact that this hegemony was loaded in America\u2019s favor: that the United States excused itself from many parts of the bargain that others agreed to, from letting its soldiers be tried for war crimes right down to the most trivial detail\u2014watch the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, next month, and you\u2019ll see that the Stars and Stripes will be almost the only banner that doesn\u2019t dip when it passes the reviewing stand, following the flag code adopted by Congress in 1942, which stipulates that we bow to no one. As Carney put it, \u201cWe knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.\u201d<\/p>\n
It may well have been a bargain worth making for countries such as Canada. But now, since the U.S. has decided to dispense with even the veneer of equality, and instead has committed itself to the principle that, as Stephen Miller, one of Trump\u2019s top advisers, put it recently, we inhabit a world that \u201cis governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,\u201d countries like Canada no longer get to make that bargain. They are told what to do, and tough if they don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n
So, as Carney explained, those middle countries had best learn to stick together, and to stand up in something like co\u00f6rdinated fashion to the bully, since as individual nations they are simply too vulnerable. \u201cYou cannot \u2018live within the lie\u2019 of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination,\u201d he said. Instead, nations will need to engage in \u201crisk management,\u201d strengthening themselves against attack and building new, more provisional, alliances. Carney, for instance, signed new trade pacts in recent weeks not just with South American nations but also with China, allowing limited imports of E.V.s in return for reduced tariffs on canola oil. On such things will the world now turn, but, if countries decide to go it alone, they will eventually lose. \u201cIn a world of great-power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: compete with each other for favour or to combine to create a third path with impact,\u201d Carney said.<\/p>\n
And what made his vision something more than Thucydidean realism was his reminder that these \u201cmiddle powers\u201d by and large still represent the core of values that America is now abandoning, and that they can build their unions at least in part on those shared ideas. Canada, he pointed out, \u201cis a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse, and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability.\u201d (That last point is no small thing on a rapidly heating planet.) He added that, together, these nations \u201ccan build something better, stronger, more just.\u201d<\/p>\n
One can fault Carney on how well he\u2019s kept his own promises domestically. Last fall, one of his cabinet ministers, a former environment minister, resigned because the Prime Minister had cut a deal with the oil-patch province of Alberta to let it build new oil pipelines to the Pacific Coast for shipment to Asia. I find it hard to believe that Carney\u2014who is, remember, an economist\u2014really believes there will be a market for that crude. Just last week, Mitsubishi and Shell were reportedly looking into selling part of their stakes in big Canadian liquid-natural-gas projects, as the demand for solar power surges across Asia. My guess is that Carney may be trying to thwart Alberta\u2019s separatist impulses\u2014there is a campaign for a secession referendum later this year, one that Trump\u2019s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been doing his best to encourage.<\/p>\n