What Is Mark Carney Really Offering the World?
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/ March 11, 2026
What Is Mark Carney Really Offering the World?
The Canadian prime minister has put himself forward as one of the sharpest Western critics of Trump’s neo-imperial order. What’s less clear is what he’s offering in its stead.
Jeet Heer
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(Florian Gaertner / Photothek via Getty Images)
This article appears in the
April 2026 issue, with the headline “Feature / March 3, 2026 The New Face of the West?”
On January 20, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney emerged as an unexpected hero, at least among those looking for an alternative to Trumpism, in an unlikely place: the World Economic Forum at Davos. Normally, Davos is a snooze-fest where the global elite exchange self-congratulatory clichés celebrating the status quo. But Carney broke from that dismal tradition by offering both a radical analysis of the failed present and a plausible alternative for the future.
Carney’s speech was delivered on a continent where the response to Donald Trump’s erratic and destabilizing return to power has consisted mostly of degrading supplication. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, for instance, nicknamed Trump “Daddy” when discussing the president’s mediation between Russia and Ukraine. Rutte then compounded his shame by saying, “Daddy has to sometimes use strong language.” Of course, putting yourself at the mercy of a capricious and abusive “Daddy” is not only debasing but an invitation to further bullying, as Trump showed when he mocked Rutte, quipping, “I think he likes me: ‘Daddy, you’re my daddy.’”
Against this background of European humiliation, Carney’s speech was a breath of fresh air. He candidly described how Trump’s lawless, zero-sum foreign policy has prompted the death spiral of American global hegemony, upended the liberal international order, and created a system of “intensifying great-power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using economic integration as coercion.” But it also acknowledged the “fiction” of that order, which always had one rule for the US and its allies and another for everyone else. More important, Carney’s speech sketched out a new path for “middle powers” such as Canada to move outside the shadow of US domination by forging new alliances and trade relations.
Against Trump’s nihilistic vision of a world dominated by great-power imperialism, Carney advocated a much more inviting future, arguing 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.”
The speech won …
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Current Issue
Feature
/ March 11, 2026
What Is Mark Carney Really Offering the World?
The Canadian prime minister has put himself forward as one of the sharpest Western critics of Trump’s neo-imperial order. What’s less clear is what he’s offering in its stead.
Jeet Heer
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
(Florian Gaertner / Photothek via Getty Images)
This article appears in the
April 2026 issue, with the headline “Feature / March 3, 2026 The New Face of the West?”
On January 20, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney emerged as an unexpected hero, at least among those looking for an alternative to Trumpism, in an unlikely place: the World Economic Forum at Davos. Normally, Davos is a snooze-fest where the global elite exchange self-congratulatory clichés celebrating the status quo. But Carney broke from that dismal tradition by offering both a radical analysis of the failed present and a plausible alternative for the future.
Carney’s speech was delivered on a continent where the response to Donald Trump’s erratic and destabilizing return to power has consisted mostly of degrading supplication. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, for instance, nicknamed Trump “Daddy” when discussing the president’s mediation between Russia and Ukraine. Rutte then compounded his shame by saying, “Daddy has to sometimes use strong language.” Of course, putting yourself at the mercy of a capricious and abusive “Daddy” is not only debasing but an invitation to further bullying, as Trump showed when he mocked Rutte, quipping, “I think he likes me: ‘Daddy, you’re my daddy.’”
Against this background of European humiliation, Carney’s speech was a breath of fresh air. He candidly described how Trump’s lawless, zero-sum foreign policy has prompted the death spiral of American global hegemony, upended the liberal international order, and created a system of “intensifying great-power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using economic integration as coercion.” But it also acknowledged the “fiction” of that order, which always had one rule for the US and its allies and another for everyone else. More important, Carney’s speech sketched out a new path for “middle powers” such as Canada to move outside the shadow of US domination by forging new alliances and trade relations.
Against Trump’s nihilistic vision of a world dominated by great-power imperialism, Carney advocated a much more inviting future, arguing 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.”
The speech won …
What Is Mark Carney Really Offering the World?
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Current Issue
Feature
/ March 11, 2026
What Is Mark Carney Really Offering the World?
The Canadian prime minister has put himself forward as one of the sharpest Western critics of Trump’s neo-imperial order. What’s less clear is what he’s offering in its stead.
Jeet Heer
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
(Florian Gaertner / Photothek via Getty Images)
This article appears in the
April 2026 issue, with the headline “Feature / March 3, 2026 The New Face of the West?”
On January 20, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney emerged as an unexpected hero, at least among those looking for an alternative to Trumpism, in an unlikely place: the World Economic Forum at Davos. Normally, Davos is a snooze-fest where the global elite exchange self-congratulatory clichés celebrating the status quo. But Carney broke from that dismal tradition by offering both a radical analysis of the failed present and a plausible alternative for the future.
Carney’s speech was delivered on a continent where the response to Donald Trump’s erratic and destabilizing return to power has consisted mostly of degrading supplication. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, for instance, nicknamed Trump “Daddy” when discussing the president’s mediation between Russia and Ukraine. Rutte then compounded his shame by saying, “Daddy has to sometimes use strong language.” Of course, putting yourself at the mercy of a capricious and abusive “Daddy” is not only debasing but an invitation to further bullying, as Trump showed when he mocked Rutte, quipping, “I think he likes me: ‘Daddy, you’re my daddy.’”
Against this background of European humiliation, Carney’s speech was a breath of fresh air. He candidly described how Trump’s lawless, zero-sum foreign policy has prompted the death spiral of American global hegemony, upended the liberal international order, and created a system of “intensifying great-power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using economic integration as coercion.” But it also acknowledged the “fiction” of that order, which always had one rule for the US and its allies and another for everyone else. More important, Carney’s speech sketched out a new path for “middle powers” such as Canada to move outside the shadow of US domination by forging new alliances and trade relations.
Against Trump’s nihilistic vision of a world dominated by great-power imperialism, Carney advocated a much more inviting future, arguing 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.”
The speech won …
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