Mark Carney Urges Middle Powers to Act Together at Davos Amid Global Rupture

The Fading Rules-Based Order

• 💡 The world is in an era of great power rivalry, where the rules-based order is fading, and the strong pursue their interests while the weak suffer.
• 📌 Many countries have adopted a strategy of "living within a lie", complying with a flawed system to avoid trouble, similar to Václav Havel's green grocer analogy.
• ⚠️ The previous bargain, where American hegemony provided public goods and a stable system, no longer works, as economic integration is now used as a weapon.

A Global Rupture, Not Transition

• ⚡ Mark Carney states we are in a "rupture, not a transition," where extreme global integration has exposed risks and great powers use economic tools as weapons.
• 📉 Multilateral institutions like the WTO and UN, crucial for middle powers, are under threat, leading many countries to seek greater strategic autonomy.
• 🚫 A world composed of individual "fortresses" will ultimately be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable for all.

Canada's Strategic Response

• 🇨🇦 Canada has fundamentally shifted its strategic posture, adopting "value-based realism" – being both principled in its values and pragmatic in its approach to global challenges.
• 💪 The nation is building strength at home through tax cuts, removing trade barriers, fast-tracking investments in key sectors like energy and AI, and doubling defense spending.
• 🌍 Canada is also diversifying abroad by forging new trade and security deals, including a comprehensive strategic partnership with the EU and negotiating free trade pacts across continents.

Collective Action for Middle Powers

• 🤝 Canada is pursuing "variable geometry," forming diverse coalitions with like-minded partners on specific issues such as Ukraine, Arctic sovereignty, plurilateral trade, critical minerals, and AI.
• 🎯 Carney emphasizes that middle powers must act together, stating, "if we're not at the table, we're on the menu," as negotiating bilaterally with hegemons leads to weakness.
• ✅ To "live the truth," middle powers must name reality, apply consistent standards, build new functional institutions, and reduce vulnerabilities to coercion through strong domestic economies and diversification.

Canada's Vision for the Future

• 🚀 Canada possesses significant assets, including being an energy superpower, holding vast critical mineral reserves, having a highly educated population, and strong fiscal capacity.
• 💡 The country is committed to being a stable and reliable partner, recognizing that the old world order is not returning and that "nostalgia is not a strategy."
• 🌱 Canada believes that from the current global fracture, something bigger, better, stronger, and more just can be built through collective action and honesty about the world's state.