Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Wednesday delivered a hard-hitting speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, taking aim at President Donald Trump’s approach to global politics while calling on "middle powers", including India, to unite as the existing world order weakens.
Speaking at the forum, Carney warned that the US-led system which has underpinned global politics and trade for decades is no longer merely evolving but breaking apart. “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” he told an audience of political leaders, financiers and corporate executives, drawing a rare standing ovation.
According to a government official who spoke to the New York Times on condition of anonymity, Carney wrote the speech himself—a notable departure from the usual practice, in which speeches of this scale are typically drafted by senior staff with input from the leader.
During the speech, Carney who as worked as the governor of Canada and England's central banks, argued that the “rules-based international order” is fading, replaced by an era in which “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must”, a direct nod to the growing use of tariffs, supply chains and financial systems as tools of coercion. “Call it what it is: a system of intensifying great power rivalry where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion,” he said.
Without naming Trump, the Canadian leader’s message landed amid rising tensions triggered by the US president’s threats to impose sweeping tariffs on allies and his renewed push to wrest control of Greenland from Denmark. Trump has also previously referred to Canada as the “51st state” and imposed tariffs that have hit key Canadian sectors such as steel, aluminium, autos and lumber.
Carney cautioned against appeasement, warning that smaller and mid-sized nations can no longer assume that compliance will bring protection. “There is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along… to hope that compliance will buy safety. It won’t,” he said. “The middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, we’re on the menu.”
He acknowledged that Canada had benefited from American dominance in the past, crediting “American hegemony” with providing “open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes”. But he said that bargain no longer works in a world where integration itself has become a vulnerability.
Carney’s speech was also a rebuke to transactional diplomacy and one-on-one bargaining with major powers. “Great powers can afford for now to go it alone… Middle powers do not,” he said, warning that bilateral negotiations with hegemons often amount to “the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination”.
Instead, he laid out a strategy of collective resilience, calling for “different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests”. That approach, he said, would apply to defence, trade, critical minerals, technology and climate policy.
India featured prominently in this vision. Carney confirmed that Canada is negotiating a free trade pact with India as part of a broader effort to diversify away from overwhelming dependence on the United States. He also cited negotiations with ASEAN countries, Mercosur, Thailand and the Philippines.
"The past few days we've concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We're negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines and Mercosur. We're doing something else to help solve global problems. We're pursuing variable geometry, in other words, different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests," the Canadian PM said.
On security, Carney reaffirmed Canada’s support for Greenland and Denmark, declaring: “Canada stands firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully supports their unique right to determine Greenland’s future.” He added that Ottawa’s commitment to Nato’s Article Five was “unwavering”, even as Trump has threatened tariffs against European allies backing Denmark.