Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was widely celebrated for his speech at Davos on January 20. Without naming names, he stated that the United States, under Donald Trump, initiated a “rupture” in the world order from which there is no return and that requires a global response.
Carney’s solution was for the “middle powers” of the world to build durable political, economic and security relationships across political and cultural divides in order to sustain a fair and equitable multilateral order.
He claimed that Canada would follow a “principled and pragmatic” foreign policy. He recognized the temptation for weaker states to competitively capitulate to a stronger power, but he characterized this as accepting “subordination.”
Carney admitted that the “rules-based order” is unfair. Trade rules are applied “asymmetrically.” The application of international law varies depending on who is the victim and who is the accused.
American allies accepted American hegemony because they benefited from that hegemony, Carney argued. Under Trump, the states that were at the table to share in the spoils of hegemony are now on the menu. This is not the bargain to which they agreed.
(Though, as an aside, it is hard to feel sympathy for the wolves when they complain about becoming the prey.)
Many commentators praised Carney for delivering one of the most consequential political speeches in decades. Canadians were proud of the defiant tone and the speech’s willingness to state and admit hard truths.
Thus, many Canadians were shocked and angered when Carney expressed Canada’s support for the US-Israel’s illegal attack on Iran. In explaining his position, Carney portrayed Iran as a destabilizing, nuclear-weapons-seeking terrorist state. He indicated that the international failure to strip Iran of its nuclear capabilities was an example of the systemic failure he alluded to in Davos.
However, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has a legal right to develop nuclear power. It has claimed not to pursue a nuclear weapons program since 2003, when Ayatollah Khamanei issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
It is the failure of international institutions and Western powers to enforce international law against Israel, and the undermining of peace efforts to avoid returning occupied land, that has caused most of the regional conflict. Carney perfectly illustrated the double standard in the application of international law that he had decried at Davos.
Some Canadian commentators have argued that Carney is demonstrating the “pragmatism” of his Davos speech by not creating unnecessary conflict with the US. Canada’s economic dependence on the US remains a restraint on Canadian foreign policy.
However, if Carney’s “principled and pragmatic” policy amounts to no more than Canada pursuing narrow, short-term self-interest, then Canada can provide no leadership in the world. Carney is practicing the competitive capitulation he warned against.
The US is an unreliable and coercive economic and security partner that is implementing its stated policy of exploiting and dominating its weaker neighbors, as it has done with Venezuela and Cuba. The US has already proven it is untrustworthy in negotiations. Canada cannot assume that any capitulation now will bring negotiated gains later.
For Canada, reinforcing the legitimacy and authority of international law is a crucial protection against American designs on Canadian territory. If Canada invokes international law only when its own interests are at risk and abandons it when it is inconvenient, it harms its own protections.
This is not the first time Carney has thrown international law under the bus to accommodate Trump. Before Davos, Carney supported the US’s illegal kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.
The Carney government refused to condemn the US’s killing of alleged drug traffickers in international waters. Canada has offered only token support to Cuba as that country is strangled by American sanctions. The US-Israeli assault on Iran may be the last straw.
Canadian political and diplomatic luminaries have attacked Carney for abandoning Canadian principles and self-interest. His governing Liberal Party caucus has reacted angrily to his failure to consult with them.
Many Canadians view the US as Canada’s greatest threat and regard American global aggression as symptomatic of US behavior towards Canada. Carney was elected to resist American domination, not acquiesce to it. He has thrown his own foreign policy into disarray as he has tried to walk back some of his positions on Iran.
On February 14, at the Munich Security Conference, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech encouraged the European world to resume its colonial and imperialist activities across the Global South.
He posited a “civilizational war” that the West is fighting against the people of the non-European world, whom he characterized as intruders in Western lands. The speech was an assertion of white supremacy, in keeping with the Trump regime’s domestic policies, and offered Europeans a subordinate role in the enterprise. Rubio received a standing ovation.
The American attack on Iran is part of an imperialist agenda to keep the Global South subservient and exploited. Moreover, while the Americans’ “civilizational war” may be directed against the brown people of the Muslim world and Latin America today, its long-term target is China and, by extension, Asia itself.
As global power inexorably shifts to Asia, the US has indicated it plans to pursue continued Western civilizational hegemony – a reality the America’s compliant Asian allies, especially Japan, should consider as they make their choices.
At Davos, Carney expressed a resonant vision of global order that correctly recognized that most of the world desires an orderly, equitable and law-governed system bound by multilateralism, accommodating cultural and political differences between states, and supportive of sovereignty rather than subordination.
As the US-Israeli war against Iran devastates the world economy and foments regional violence, it is crystal clear that the US poses a profound danger to global peace, stability and prosperity.
If ever there was a time for the world to rally around Carney’s vision at Davos, it is now. It is unfortunate that Carney undermined his message by supporting an increasingly disastrous war of choice.
Shaun Narine is a professor of international relations at St Thomas University in Fredericton, Canada.