AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a speech that called out the current rules-based international order.
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PRIME MINISTER MARK CARNEY: Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. 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.
RASCOE: It was a poignant speech, taking aim at the ways the Trump administration has disrupted global diplomatic trade and security norms. Paul Wells is a Canadian journalist and political analyst, and he joins us now. Welcome to the program.
PAUL WELLS: Thank you for having me.
RASCOE: So what was your initial reaction to Prime Minister Carney's speech?
WELLS: The question of relations with the United States is sort of central to just about all of our political debates. So he's been talking about this a lot. But I thought it was an interesting summary and update on his thinking for an international audience. What I wasn't expecting was the reaction from the rest of the world, which has been remarkable.
RASCOE: Prime Minister Carney basically said that what's really happening is that powerful countries coerce countries they trade with in pursuit of their own interests. I mean, that's obviously a shot at the U.S. But if Canada is no longer willing to follow the lead of a country like the U.S., how will it compete? How will it operate on the global stage?
WELLS: Well, that is the pressing question. What Carney said, and it's important to say that he doesn't specify at any point the United States, and he doesn't ever mention Donald Trump in the speech. But what he essentially said is that the United States has joined Russia and China in the ranks of global powers that are so powerful they can ignore the rules that everyone else thought we were living by, that the rules-based international order has become a sham, to the extent that we expect the biggest powers in the world, including the United States to respect those rules. And so you're right, the next question is what is Canada to do about it? The answer is it doesn't just eat what it's fed, but rather it should seek alliances with other countries on various issues to multiply the power of those second-tier countries so they can get something done in this suddenly much more frightening world.
RASCOE: When you think about new alliances, Carney talked about solving global problems based on common values. And if that means possibly new alliances, what might those alliances look like?
WELLS: Carney, who's a nerdy fellow, a lifelong banker, calls it variable geometry. And that means that Canada is part of an essentially European coalition of the willing on the defense of Ukraine, Arctic sovereignty. He said, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark. Canada is a member of NATO, including with the United States. He's trying to build a bridge on trade between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union. On a bunch of different issues, he's looking at encouraging alliances whose membership list and whose interests would vary from case to case. It's essentially a call for enlightened ad hockery in which the second-tier countries, as I've said, work around the United States, China and Russia, to the extent possible.
RASCOE: Carney also pointed out that when negotiating with, quote, "hegemon countries" and we're thinking like China or the U.S., Canada is doing this from a weak position. He said, this is not sovereignty. It's the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.
WELLS: Yeah.
RASCOE: Is he drawing a line in the sand?
WELLS: I think, to some extent. But almost the genius of this speech, as well as its principal weakness, is that it leaves a bunch of questions unanswered. I think a lot of people who are concerned about the Trump administration, concerned about an American changing role in the world, loaded this speech up with a lot of their hopes and fears in a way that the text of the speech doesn't necessarily support. The question of how much we need to turn the page on the United States, when the United States still buys almost all of our exports, still provides most of our imports and is a founding partner of our two most important security alliances, NATO and NORAD, one speech is not going to begin to answer those questions.
RASCOE: Well, President Trump responded to Prime Minister Carney's speech saying, quote, "he wasn't so grateful. They should be grateful to us, Canada. Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements." What do you make of Trump's response?
WELLS: Those remarks did not go over very well in Canada, where more than a hundred and forty Canadian soldiers died defending American sovereignty in Afghanistan after 9/11, where Canadian soldiers entered the first and second world wars years before American soldiers did. America has a huge, in some ways, overwhelming influence on Canada, but we have some pride, and most Canadians I know were not very happy to hear that kind of nonsense from the president.
RASCOE: What does the path ahead look like for Canada and the U.S. now going forward?
WELLS: I think there's going to be a little bit less walking on eggshells, a little bit less trying to avoid saying the thing that might make President Trump angry. What we've learned is that eventually everything makes him angry, and Canada, in the meantime, has to make its choices.
RASCOE: That was Paul Wells. He is a Canadian journalist and analyst. Thank you so much for speaking with us today.
WELLS: Thank you.
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