DAVOS — Speaking before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland today, Prime Minister Mark Carney says the world has entered a risky new age of great power rivalries.
As U.S. President Donald Trump continues to call this week for the annexation of Greenland, Carney is warning the assembled leaders against the hope that compliance might buy safety.
The prime minister says countries like Canada prospered under a predictable, rules-based international order that can no longer be relied on.
“It seems that every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can and the weak must suffer what they must,” Carney said.
“Faced with this logic 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, well it won’t.”
Carney calls the long-standing rules-based system a useful fiction long propped up by U.S. hegemony.
Carney says the last year has shown that the world is moving toward a system of economic coercion, with great powers pursuing their own interests above all else.
He stressed that middle powers like Canada must adapt to this new reality, which is why Canada is looking to expand non-U.S. trading relationships through deals such as those signed recently with China and Qatar.
“We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” Carney said.
“As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions that they must develop greater strategic autonomy … a country that can’t feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options.
“The question for middle powers like Canada is not whether to adapt to the new reality – we must – the question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls, or whether we can do something more ambitious,” he said, referring to Canada’s outreach to new trading partners.
“Not every partner will share all of our values,” he admitted.
“We are engaging broadly, strategically with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish (for).”
“Middle powers must act together because if we are not at the table, we are on the menu,” he said to scattered laughs.
‘We stand firmly with Greenland’
Carney reaffirmed Canada’s support for Greenland in the face of takeover threats from Trump.
“On Arctic sovereignty we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future,” he said.
“Our commitment to NATO’s Article 5 is unwavering,” he added.
Article 5 states that an armed attack against one NATO member shall be considered an attack against all members, triggering an obligation for each member to come to its assistance.
“Canada strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland and calls for focused talks to achieve our shared objectives of security and prosperity in the Arctic.”