Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told the World Economic Forum in Davos that the rules-based international order has reached its end, and called on middle-weight countries like Canada to build strategic autonomy and new forms of cooperation without abandoning values such as human rights, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
"It seems like every day we are reminded that we live in an age of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can and the weak must accept what must be accepted," Carney said, citing an aphorism by Thucydides that he said was being misrepresented as the inevitable logic of international relations. relations.
Carney described the situation not as a transition but as a rupture, in which economic integration is increasingly being weaponized - through tariffs, financial pressures and vulnerable supply chains. He warned that when integration becomes a source of subjugation, "you can't live with the lie of mutual benefit".
"We knew that the story of the rules-based international order was partly false, that the strongest would absolve themselves of responsibility when it suited them, that trade rules were applied asymmetrically. And we knew that international law was applied with varying severity depending on the identity of the accused or the victim" Carney said in his Davos speech.
"This fiction has been useful, and American hegemony, in particular, has helped to provide public goods, open seas, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for dispute resolution frameworks."
"So we put the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals and largely avoided highlighting the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This deal is no longer working. Let me be blunt. We are in a rupture, not a transition."
"Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics have exposed the risks of extreme global integration. But recently, great powers have begun to use economic integration as a weapon, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, and supply chains as vulnerabilities that can be exploited."
"You cannot live with the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes a source of your subjugation."
In his speech, the prime minister invoked Vaclav Havel's essay "The Power of the Powerless" and the concept of "living a lie," urging countries and companies to "take down the signs from their windows" and stop pretending that the old order works."
Carney stressed that a world of isolated "fortresses" would be poorer and more fragile, and argued that strategic autonomy could be more effective if built collectively. He argues that middle powers lose when they negotiate separately with hegemons, but gain influence when they act together.
He outlined a new Canadian approach called "values-based realism" - a combination of principle and pragmatism. Canada, he said, is investing massively at home - cutting taxes, removing internal trade barriers, accelerating about $1 trillion in investments in energy, artificial intelligence and critical minerals, and planning to double defense spending by the end of the decade.
Externally, the country is diversifying its partnerships, including through a strategic agreement with the EU, new deals with countries on four continents and participation in flexible "issue-by-issue" coalitions - from support for Ukraine to Arctic security and the development of trade and artificial intelligence.
"Nostalgia is not a strategy", Carney concluded, adding that Canada is openly choosing the path of honesty, internal strength and joint action - a path open to other countries with similar values.