Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney drew a standing ovation at the World Economic Forum in Davos after warning that the global order has ruptured.
“Let me be direct: We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” Carney said, as The New York Times reported.
“I will talk today about the breaking of the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a brutal reality where the geopolitics of the great powers is not subject to any constraint,” he explained.
“Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry,” he said. “That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”
Carney did not say President Donald Trump's name, but he did tell his audience, "recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited."
"You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination."
He also said that "there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety."
"It won’t," he warned.
Carney said that "intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states."
And he warned that those powers "must act together, because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu."
The Times noted that Carney's speech came "not long after" President Donald Trump "posted an A.I. image on social media that included a map of American flags superimposed over both Canada and the United States," along with the U.S. flag on Greenland, Venezuela, and Cuba.
Very important and very well put remarks by 🇨🇦 PM Mark Carney. It’s time to take down the sign and speak up. pic.twitter.com/Ky00CNMYVM
— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) January 20, 2026
