Canadian prime minister Mark Carney gave a stark warning to the world in his speech at Davos yesterday, but avoided mentioning US president Donald Trump directly by name.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, Mr Carney declared that the old world order was in the ‘midst of a rupture” and was “not coming back.”
His speech comes amid global tensions over Mr Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on European countries that refuse to support his bid to takeover Greenland.
Mr Carney said Canada “strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland” and called for strategic talks while standing with Denmark over their claims to sovereignty of the island territory.
Here is his speech in full.
“Thank you very much, Larry. I’m going to start in French, and then I’ll switch back to English.”
[The following is translated from French]
“Thank you, Larry. It is both a pleasure, and a duty, to be with you tonight in this pivotal moment that Canada and the world going through.
“Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.
“On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially 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.
“The power of the less power starts with honesty.”
[Carney returns to speaking in English]
“It seems that every day we’re 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.
“And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself.
