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EDITORIAL: ‘An international relations earthquake’ (Feb. 2026)

March 11th, 2026 · No Comments

There are times when Canada appears on the radar of American media, but for the most part, Canada exists on the margins. That all changed with Mark Carney’s recent speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Ezra Klein of the New York Times wrote that the speech triggered an “international relations earthquake.” Carney stood up to the bully without naming him.

The prime minister’s speech came as President Trump was wielding a big stick against Europe and the entire NATO alliance. Trump threatened to further tariff E.U. imports and invade Greenland, a territory of Denmark and a member of NATO. Trump texted the prime minister of Norway to say he was doing this out of spite because he was not awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. 

Normally, European leaders take the lead among advance democracies in responding to U.S. foreign policy forays. But no one stood up. Carney stepped into the void and used his credibility as a former leader in global financial systems. It gave the so-called “middle powers” of the European Union the courage to stand up against American threats. 

It appears that the United States is vulnerable because it is so indebted to other nations. If U.S. bond holders were to redeem their bonds the American currency would collapse, and with it, the economy. No one wants the world’s largest economy to collapse, but if the alternative is death by a thousand cuts at the hands of a man seemingly at war with everyone, so be it. 

Some argue Canada should swallow its pride, play to Trump’s ego, and play it safe. The flaw in that strategy is that it won’t work. When Trump started to huff and puff at Canada, then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau flew down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring. That got us nowhere fast, only revealing weakness. Until Carney’s speech, the Europeans bent over backwards for Trump, signing trade deals that made no sense for them just to keep the U.S. as their customer. What did they get in return? Trump’s utter contempt in the form of more tariffs and the threat to invade Greenland, a NATO member. 

It’s not all doom and gloom. Trump makes no pretense of idealism. His venality is in plain view, and he is guided only by his nakedly transactional ethos. The problem for Trump is that this creates a craving for the opposite. Enter from stage right, Mark Carney who offers hope. He proposes that nations should not be nostalgic for the past; indeed, he urges that the past is not as rosy as it may have seemed. The prime minister urges “middle powers” to unite, forge economic partnerships among themselves, and recognize that financial integration with the United States is a form of submission and dependence. Until Trump, the U.S. was wise to be measured in exercising its hegemony. 

The alternative offered by the prime minister is an economic alliance of European and Pacific countries with Canada as the bridge. What really got Trump upset was the idea of a western economy where the U.S. is not at the table. This could take the form of a merger of the EU trade deal with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which John Ibbitson of the Globe and Mail coined the “Atlantic-Pacific Trade Alliance or APTA.” 

Of course, the risk Canada now faces is a less than favourable outcome in the upcoming USMCA renegotiation, the three-way free trade deal between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. However, the future of that deal is already very much in doubt. Trump said that if the USMCA were scrapped, “it wouldn’t matter to me” because “I really don’t care about it.” Perhaps this is what Carney was foreshadowing when he said, “nostalgia is not a strategy.” He has made a calculation that Donald Trump is not a trusted partner, and he has chosen to stand up rather than lie down. The risk is you lose the very financial security that you are trying to salvage, but what Canada gets to keep is self-respect, and that feels very good indeed.

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Tags: Annex · Editorial · Opinion

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