Canada’s Carney Claims Mantle of ‘Leader of the Free World’

Listen To This Story

With the United States joining the ranks of the world’s rogue nations, there is a vacuum at the top of the coalition of countries commonly known as “the free world,” i.e., those who (mostly) stand for freedom, democracy, peace, and global cooperation.

You might think that the natural successor to the US would be Europe. After all, the continent is home to four of the world’s ten largest economies and contains two nuclear powers. However, the EU is often fractured on key issues and has some member states, primarily Hungary, that would be full-fledged authoritarian regimes if they didn’t like all that money coming from Brussels. In addition, Brexit made it more difficult for Europe to present a united front.

Most importantly, in the face of the threat Donald Trump poses to the continent’s economy and security, its leaders, who apparently have learned nothing from their own history, have (foolishly) chosen appeasement over resolve. They seem to believe that the cost of standing up for themselves would be too high.

Europe and the US have traditionally been linked through mutually beneficial trade, history, heritage, common values, and shared security interests, but that’s no longer the case with Trump at the helm.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney seems to be the one leader who has recognized this… and even more is at stake for his country.

Not only has Trump repeatedly said that he wants to absorb his northern neighbor, but the US market is of vital importance to Canada. While about one-fifth of the EU’s exports go to the United States, that figure tops 70 percent for Canada. And yet, Carney is the one Western leader who understands that you can only meet a bully with strength.

On some level, EU leaders also know this, but they are too afraid of Trump to say or do anything about it.

Not the Canadian prime minister.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Carney got a rare standing ovation for drawing a line in the sand without ever mentioning the US president by name.

He didn’t have to. The political and corporate leaders in attendance knew who he was talking about.

“Today, I’ll talk about the rupture in the world order, the end of a nice story, and the beginning of a brutal reality where geopolitics among the great powers is not subject to any constraints,” Carney said (in French) at the onset of his remarks.

“But I also submit to you that other countries, particularly middle powers like Canada, are not powerless,” he added. “They have the capacity to build a new order that embodies our values, like respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of states.”

Noting that “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must,” Carney stated that the less powerful have a tendency to “avoid trouble” and “hope that compliance will buy safety.” But it won’t.

Carney made clear that this is not something that started with Trump. The most powerful countries, including the US, have often disregarded the international rules they wrote and for which they advocated when it was convenient for them to do so.

“This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes,” the prime minister stated, which is why US allies “largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.” However, because Trump is taking this lawlessness to extremes — for example, by using economic integration as a weapon — “This bargain no longer works.”

The solution to withstanding pressure from more powerful countries that have “abandon[ed] even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests,” i.e., a Trump-led US, is for those middle powers to increase their options and look for ways to become less dependent on these great powers.

“Such classic risk management comes at a price, but that cost of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty, can also be shared,” Carney said. “Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortress.”

Ultimately, the prime minister argued, this isn’t even an optional approach.

“The question for middle powers, like Canada, is not whether to adapt to this new reality. We must,” he stated. “The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls — or whether we can do something more ambitious.”

Essentially, his speech should be viewed as an invitation to what is left of the free world to band together and resist Trump.

It should be noted that, prior to his departure to Davos, Carney was also very clear that Canada would honor its NATO obligations and come to Greenland’s aid if the US were to take military action against the Danish territory.

Others, especially EU leaders, have been far less clear, which is especially puzzling in light of how deeply unpopular Trump is in Europe and across the globe. Opposing him is the popular position.

Then again, maybe European leaders are finally ready to abandon their strategy of appeasement in light of the US president’s persistent threats directed at Greenland and his decision to slap new tariffs on a handful of EU countries, reneging on a trade agreement the two sides reached last year.

If they do, maybe the EU will lead the free world.

For now, however, that job belongs to Carney, who is more popular at home than any of those European leaders (and Trump).

And in Davos, he issued a clarion call to those who still believe in the principles of freedom, democracy, and cooperation.

“In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: to compete with each other for favor or to combine to create a third path with impact,” Carney said. “We should not allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong — if we choose to wield it together.”