Carney warns middle powers are 'on the menu' after Trump kills old world order by putting America First—Trump says Canada should be grateful

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney used his Davos speech this week to deliver a carefully worded warning about the United States, global power, and what he described as the collapse of the so-called rules-based international order, casting Canada as a beleaguered “middle power” forced to navigate a harsher world shaped by American muscle.

Though Carney avoided naming Donald Trump directly for much of his remarks, it was obvious who the target was. With Trump back in the White House, openly using tariffs, leverage, and raw power in foreign policy, Carney spoke on how Canada can no longer rely on US leadership to play by the rules.

“We are living through a rupture in the world order,” Carney said. “Not a transition. A rupture.”

Carney described decades of Western foreign policy as a kind of collective make-believe, arguing that countries like Canada quietly tolerated inconsistencies and double standards because American dominance delivered stability. “We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false,” he admitted. “We knew the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically.” Still, he acknowledged, Canada went along with it.

“So, we placed the sign in the window,” Carney said, borrowing a metaphor from dissident Vaclav Havel. “We participated in the rituals.” Now, he said, that arrangement has collapsed, particularly as major powers begin using “tariffs as leverage” and “economic integration as coercion.” While Carney framed this as a broad geopolitical trend, it was clearly a response to Trump's more confrontational geopolitical strategy. 

“There is a strong tendency to go along to get along,” Carney warned. “To hope that compliance will buy safety. Well, it won’t.”

“This is not sovereignty,” Carney said. “It’s the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.” Carney turned to Arctic security and Greenland, an issue Trump tackled aggressively the following day by calling Greenland a “core national security interest” of the United States and floating renewed acquisition talks.

“On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark,” he said. “We fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future.”

He added pointedly: “Canada strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland.” While Trump spoke openly about ownership, leverage, and defense in his speech the following day, Carney put more of a focus on process and “value-based realism” rather than power politics.

“We are no longer just relying on the strength of our values,” Carney said. “We are also relying on the value of our strength.” That strength, he said, would come from domestic investment, defense spending, and diversification away from overdependence on any single country. Carney touted tax cuts, interprovincial trade reform, a trillion dollars in fast-tracked investment, and a plan to double defense spending by decade’s end.

Internationally, he touched on new trade deals and security agreements across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and in Canada's case, China, presenting Canada as a builder of coalitions rather than a follower. “If we’re not at the table,” Carney warned, “we’re on the menu.”

“We are taking the sign out of the window,” Carney said. “We know the old order is not coming back.”

The following day saw Trump respond, with little worry about stepping on toes. During Trump's nearly hour-long statement to the Davos crowd, the president mentioned Canada by name 6 times, nearly all within the context of their northern neighbour being "ungrateful." 

"All we want from Denmark for national and international security and to keep our very energetic and dangerous potential enemies at bay is this land on which we’re going to build the greatest Golden Dome ever built. We’re building the Golden Dome that’s going to just, by its very nature, going to be defending Canada," Trump said. "Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way. They should be grateful also. But they’re not. I watched your prime minister yesterday. He wasn’t so grateful. They should be grateful to us. Canada. Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements."