Carney at Davos warns of ‘rupture’ of rules-based global order, takes a dig at Trump—'You cannot live within the lie…'

Mark Carney's speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos caught global attention, with the Canadian Prime Minister pointing out the "rupture" of a "rules-based" international order and warning of a "brutal reality" of excesses by unconstrained great powers.

While Carney did not mention President Donald Trump by name during his speech, it was evident who he was referring to, especially amid tensions over Greenland and Trump's recent comment that he was above international laws.

"Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry," the Canadian Prime Minister said, adding, "That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must."

Saying that the "fiction" of a rules-based international order had been useful, Carney said, "American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes."

The Canadian Prime Minister also recalled how most had turned a blind eye to the global power asymmetry, saying, "We participated in the rituals and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality."

"This bargain no longer works," Carney stated flatly, adding, "Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition."

"Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration," the Canadian PM explained, before attacking the Trump administration.

"But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited," Carney said, without naming anyone.

"You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination," the Canadian PM asserted.

Carney went on to warn against temptation for smaller powers to accommodate the whims of dominant powers, saying, "Faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along – to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety. Well, it won’t."