{"id":1433,"date":"2026-04-12T17:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/1433\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T17:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:03:09","slug":"mark-carney-warns-australia-and-canada-face-subordination-by-global-superpowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/1433\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Carney warns Australia and Canada face ‘subordination’ by global superpowers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Carney has warned economic integration has “subordinated” middle powers to predatory superpowers, declaring countries like Australia and Canada must band together to develop critical technologies, defend free trade, and protect human rights.<\/p>\n

Canada’s prime minister used an address at the Lowy Institute on Wednesday evening to echo many of the themes from his high-profile speech in Davos<\/a> in January, when he declared the post-war international order was “over” and urged smaller states to band together against the larger, dominant superpowers.<\/p>\n

Mr Carney expanded on this theme in Sydney ahead of his address to federal parliament on Thursday, warning prioritising economic efficiency had led governments to “develop supply chains and relationships that create dependence on hegemons and in some cases, hyper-scalers, for essential determinants of our sovereignty”.<\/p>\n

Canadian PM Mark Carney speaks out against Trump in Davos<\/a><\/p>\n

Canadian PM Mark Carney says “middle powers must act together”.<\/p>\n

He did not point fingers directly at the US and China but pointed to critical sectors dominated by American and Chinese companies and state entities, including artificial intelligence, payment systems, clean energy technology, computing and space-based communication.<\/p>\n

And he said Canada had a “strategic imperative” to build “sovereign capabilities in critical sectors at home, and with trusted partners like Australia, to ensure integration is never again the source of our subordination”.<\/p>\n

As in Davos, Mr Carney said Canada wanted to build “ad hoc coalitions” on key issues with partners that share common ground rather than “negotiating from a position of weakness” with great powers.<\/p>\n

“Countries like ours can compete with each for favour, or combine to create a third path with impact,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This creates enormous opportunities for Australia to work together. At a minimum, to limit risk. But really, fundamentally and positively to build an increased prosperity and build our collective sovereignty.”<\/p>\n

He pointed to critical minerals cooperation as a key example.<\/p>\n

Canada and Australia are widely expected to sign new agreements on critical minerals during Mr Carney’s visit to Canberra on Thursday, and the Canadian prime minister said the two countries could create “the largest critical minerals reserve held by trusted, democratic nations”.<\/p>\n

Carney plans Australia trip<\/a><\/p>\n

The Canadian government confirms details of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s trip to Australia, where he hopes to deepen ties on trade, defence and critical minerals as his country looks to reduce reliance on the US.<\/p>\n

He also said the two nations could expand cooperation on defence.<\/p>\n

Canada has launched a multi-billion-dollar plan to strengthen the Canadian military and reduce reliance on the United States.<\/p>\n

The bilateral relationship has nose-dived since Donald Trump regained office, with the US president threatening crippling tariffs and even annexation.<\/p>\n

Mr Carney said around 70 per cent of Canada’s defence spending currently went to US entities, which “doesn’t make sense from a risk management perspective”.<\/p>\n

And he struck a bullish tone about the future, saying countries like Australia and Canada could help set global rules and shape the next global order because they had “two advantages the hegemons lack”.<\/p>\n

“The first is legitimacy and the second is trust,” he said.<\/p>\n

“In contrast, the hegemons can compel, but that comes with cost: both reputational and financial. Change with compulsion doesn’t last.<\/p>\n

“Middle powers have more power than many realise. Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea: this coalition has a GDP larger than the United States, three times the trade flows of China [and] the largest research and development spend in the world.”<\/p>\n

But Mr Carney used more careful language when he was asked about his relationships with the leaders of both hegemons \u2014 US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n

Mr Carney has had public disputes<\/a> with Mr Trump, but suggested the US president was less confrontational in private.<\/p>\n

He told the audience it was important not to be “obsequious” while still showing Mr Trump respect.<\/p>\n

“You don’t want to say anything in public you can’t back up,” he said.<\/p>\n

“[But] it’s quite different in private \u2026 he is more interested in your viewpoint on various things, in private.<\/p>\n

“That creates an ability to work through things. But it’s not easy, to be clear. It’s not easy.”<\/p>\n

The prime minister said when he met Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time last year, Mr Xi urged him to raise any issues with him personally, rather than raising them publicly.<\/p>\n

“The second thing I’d say is we take from Australia a number of lessons in terms of how to engage with China,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Canadian<\/p>\n

Mark Carney and his wife, Diana Fox Carney, arrive at Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport. (Reuters: Hollie Adams)<\/p>\n

“Which is to be very clear about where we are looking to cooperate, and where we are not. I call it guardrails on the relationship.”<\/p>\n

Mr Carney arrived in Australia after visiting India, as the two countries tried to move past an extraordinary diplomatic dispute that saw former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau accusing New Delhi of orchestrating the 2023 murder of a Sikh separatist activist in British Columbia.<\/p>\n

Mr Carney said Canada was facing “an issue with a number of countries” involving “transnational repression [and] cross-border security” and was now “much more cognisant” and “aggressive” on the issue.<\/p>\n

“But at [the] same time, having engagement with these countries, so we can have security dialogue so we can go directly and call things out and start to address them,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Because vigilance alone won’t be enough.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Carney has warned economic integration has “subordinated” middle powers to predatory superpowers, declaring countries like Australia and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[991,367,17,337,162,111,458,992,30],"class_list":{"0":"post-1433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mark-carney","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-mark-carney","14":"tag-middle-powers","15":"tag-speech","16":"tag-united-states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}