Sixteen powerful minutes. The world listened as Mark Carney crystallized the new world order and then instructed the middle powers in how to deal with it. And how not to. If his words are heeded, it will have been a speech for the ages.
It certainly caught the attention of its target audience—the middle powers—receiving praise from Finland to Mexico to Australis.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb called it an excellent speech, “a deep analysis of the change in the world order and the new balance that we’re looking at.”
Fro Marko Mihkelson, chair of Estonia’s Foreign Affairs Committee, stated that it was “a genuine manifesto of free people standing up to bullies.”
From Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former director of communications, “Speeches still matter. A privilege to be there to hear one of the best—and most important—of recent times .… Others need to follow his lead.”
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the speech was “in tune with the current times” while opposition leader Juan Ignacio Zavala Gutiérrez noted that it revealed how “emerging forces like Canada” can deal with the great powers by forging alliances.
Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull suggested his country’s current PM “should give the same speech because basically the message is: We will not be bullied, we will maintain our sovereignty. And as a middle power, we will work with other middle powers to stand up to the bully. If you are integrated with the United States economically or you are dependent on the United States, Trump will use that as a vulnerability and exploit it.”
Praise came from Americans as well. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who attended the Davos conference, reported that “I had more leaders from the United States quietly send me, not publicly, the transcript of that speech saying, ‘Wow.’ … I respect what Carney did because he had courage of convictions, he stood up, and I think we need to stand up in America and call this out with clarity.”
Of course not all comments from Americans expressed approval. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick accused Canada of lacking gratitude and dismissed the speech as “political noise.”
President Trump, too, complained of Canada’s ingratitude, claiming “Canada lives because of the United States,” and adding what sounded rather like a threat, “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.” He subsequently withdrew Carney’s invitation to join his Gaza “Board of Peace,” and of course is threatening more tariffs.
Trump has more than one reason to be angry with our prime minister. To begin with, Carney’s speech at Davos stole attention away from his rambling effort, and his narcissist’s ego cannot stand not being the centre of attention.
Secondly Carney, without naming him, made it clear who is primarily (but not solely) responsible for the collapse of the imperfect but striving rules-based international order.
And thirdly, the speech exposed the world order Trump is proposing—great powers dominating their spheres of influence with smaller countries paying homage—while explaining how lesser powers can defend themselves against it.
For me, perhaps the most best part of the speech was its realistic but hopeful ending. “The old order is not coming back,” he said. “We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger and more just.”
Trump and his fellow authoritarians have put us in a bad place, the rules-based order is fractured, but it can and should remain the goal for civilized societies.