Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 20, 2026. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is calling out a top official in President Donald Trump's administration and dismissing the claim that he had walked back some of his incendiary Davos speech in a phone call with the president, according to The New Republic.
During a Monday evening appearance on Fox News, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed that Carney and Trump had spoken over the phone earlier in the day, and that the prime minister had been "very aggressively walking back some of the unfortunate remarks he made at Davos." This came as the president had been ramping up tariff threats against Canada in the wake of Carney's head-turning speech.
In an address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Carney argued that the era of American hegemony over the world order was at an end, owing to Trump's antagonistic treatment of allies since returning to the White House and his demand to take over Greenland from Denmark. He further argued that the middle power nations of the world must now band together to pursue their goals, rather than counting on the backing of the U.S.
The speech instantly became a hot-button topic, with a recent New York Times Opinion headline from Ezra Klein proclaiming it as the "most important foreign policy speech in years." It seemed to ruffle Trump's feathers as well, as he later went off on Canada in his own Davos speech, suggesting that Canada ought to be "grateful” for the “freebies" it gets from the U.S. and claiming that "Canada lives because of the United States."
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Carney rebuked Bessent for mischaracterizing his phone call with the phone call with the president. While the prime minister called the conversation a positive one, he also stressed that he did not back down from the points made in his speech.
"To be absolutely clear, and I said this to the president, I meant what I said in Davos," Carney said. "It was clear it was a broader set of issues that Canada was the first country to understand the change in U.S. trade policy that he had initiated. And we’re responding to that."
"We had a very good conversation on a wide range of subjects, ranging from the situation in Ukraine, in Venezuela, Arctic security," he added. "We discussed as well what Canada is doing, positively, and this is the context of our discussion, what Canada is doing positively to build new partnerships around the world."