![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768972148_849_369958dc66697d0627416b0b8924e301553f0262.png\")
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January 21, 2026 \u2014 3:12pm<\/p>\n
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n Save this article for later<\/p>\n Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime.<\/p>\n Got it<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n \u201cWe are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are among the world\u2019s latest and most sophisticated investors. And we have the values to which many others aspire.\u201d<\/p>\n Mark Carney could have been talking about Australia. He was, of course, talking about his own country, Canada, and why it, as a successful middle power, was capable of helping build a new system of alliances to replace the so-called \u201crules-based international order\u201d that is being dismantled by the world\u2019s hegemons.<\/p>\n Carney\u2019s blockbuster speech<\/a> to the world\u2019s political and business elite in Davos has been noticed around the world. He did not mention Donald Trump by name, but the context was clear. As Trump hits allies with tariffs, threatens to blow up NATO over his demands to seize Greenland, and casts doubt on America\u2019s reliability as a friend, Carney\u2019s message was: it\u2019s time to call time.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,\u201d he said. \u201cGreat powers have begun 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 \u2018mutual benefit through integration\u2019 when integration becomes the source of your subordination.\u201d<\/p>\n Rules-based order had always been a polite fiction, Carney said, with exceptions and loopholes that were often papered over. He likened it to Czech dissident (and later president) Vaclav Havel\u2019s account of communism as \u201cliving within a lie\u201d. Everyone repeats the same mantras, even though they know them to be untrue.<\/p>\n Related Article Now, Carney said, middle powers must live the truth. What does that mean? \u201cFirst, it means naming reality. Stop invoking the rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is: a system of intensifying great power rivalry where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion.\u201d<\/p>\n And it means diversifying alliances and partnerships. Carney noted Canada had signed 13 trade and security deals on four different continents in the past six months. It inked new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar and was negotiating free trade agreements with India, Thailand and the Philippines, among others.<\/p>\n Canada was pursuing what Carney called \u201cvariable geometry\u201d: building different coalitions on different issues, based on values and interests.<\/p>\n And Canada had another valuable asset, he said: \u201cWe have a recognition of what\u2019s happening and a determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaption. It calls for honesty about the world as it is \u2026 we know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn\u2019t mourn it.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a remarkable address: direct, perfectly timed and intended to be noticed. George Magnus, an economist at Oxford University\u2019s China Centre, called it a \u201ccometh the hour speech, and an important lesson for anyone that\u2019s not the US or China\u201d. Dutch historian Rutger Bregman said it was \u201criveting, extraordinary and brutally honest\u201d.<\/p>\n It was also not a speech that Anthony Albanese could have given. It is not his style, for one \u2013 but moreover, it runs counter to what Labor is doing, which is drawing closer to the US<\/a> at a time when the world is starting to hedge its bets.<\/p>\n To be fair, the government has criticised Trump\u2019s tariffs, and said it will not give into economic coercion on articles of faith like the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. And Canada is in a different position to Australia, copping the full brunt of US economic coercion along with threats to its sovereignty.<\/p>\n This is not to say Carney\u2019s instincts will prove correct, particularly the pivot towards China that he initiated in Beijing last week. Justin Logan, director of defence and foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, says Canada is \u201cthe remora fish of international politics\u201d, referring to a species that attaches itself to sharks.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cThe reason it\u2019s safe is because of where it lives,\u201d Logan says. \u201cIf Carney believes Canada\u2019s security is shaped more by something called \u2018the rules-based order\u2019 than by geography, and the solution is to play footsies with China, he may find that he\u2019s just swum into the shark\u2019s mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n The US is the shark in this metaphor. But Carney had a defiant warning for the shark in his speech: the type of coercion we\u2019ve seen from Trump has diminishing returns.<\/p>\n \u201cThe gains from transactionalism will become harder to replicate,\u201d he said. \u201cHegemons cannot continually monetise their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. They\u2019ll buy insurance, increase options in order to rebuild sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Canadian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/c04ac654207772b2bc186695b82c213971c141a3.jpeg\")
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned the world order was breaking: \u201cthe end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a brutal reality\u201d.AP<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/9601ccf4cb4b7643869a8de7bcaec3b885e71fbb.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Anthony](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/e086dbb8ab011a60f36059b091e0185e41b258ed.jpeg\")
Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump in Washington on October 20.Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/f6479b170cc85808d0b0321cb8ed5d0ff6783ff5.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/369958dc66697d0627416b0b8924e301553f0262.png\")
Michael Koziol<\/a> is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via Twitter<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners