On January 20, 2025, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a speech at the annual WEF meeting in Davos. Immediately, a chorus of praise rang out from liberals and liberal media outlets the world over, Global North and Global South alike. Carney indirectly took aim at President Trump by claiming that the world was in the “midst of a rupture, not a transition,” indicating that “hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships” and trying to point a new direction where “allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty…[because] middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” Aside from PM Carney’s wishful thinking of a Canadian exit from American domination and sphere of influence. There were a couple of very important truths that were presented.
President Trump: The Mask Comes Off
The problem with PM Carney’s conceptualization is a common one in Western capitals. History begins when they want, in this case, President Trump’s 2nd term. Put simply, the problem of the ‘rules-based international order’ stems from one person, President Trump. If it weren’t for President Trump things would be fine, just like they always have been.
For Carney and other American allies, history began in 2025 when President Trump levied tariffs on Canada and the European Union, extorted South Korea for $200 billion and Japan for $500 billion, and finally threatened to annex Greenland from NATO ally Denmark.
It failed to dawn on the elite Davos crowd that a mere two weeks before Carney’s ‘historic’ Davos speech, the same Canadian government stood in support of President Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuela’s Head of State, Nicolas Maduro. The same brand of liberals in the European Union echoed support of democracy and human rights of the Venezuelan people while supporting blatant violations of international law and state sovereignty by supporting Maduro’s kidnapping.
For American allies, the once reliable American hegemon is no longer acting ‘rational,’ ‘in accordance with international laws and norms’ to the benefit of vassals and supplicants. In other words, Trump 2.0 is the world’s mask-off moment.
This is partially true in the sense that President Trump represents the vulgar, impulsive, aggressive, selfish, and destructive side of American politics and empire. Trump speaks in a manner inconsistent with prior empire managers and instead says the obvious out loud. Case in point being that America would steal Venezuelan oil and run the country.
The problem with believing this line of thought is that it is historically ignorant, makes excuses for the powerful, and ignores reality outside of liberal bubbles.
PM Carney is not chagrined because the fictitious ‘rules-based international order’ is ending; he is angry because the imperial hegemon, America, is now beginning to treat its closest allies in the same manner it has treated the 3rd World since 1945. Instead of benefiting from American extraction of wealth and global repression of development to satisfy the core, Trump and the hegemon are now extracting and extorting from allies while simultaneously patronizing, condescending to, and belittling them.
Looking at the World with Open Eyes
For those with a memory and recollection of recent history, events since January 20, 2025, are not so dissimilar to decades past. Carney supporters seem to have forgotten a few important facts over the past 40 years which include but are not limited to the following.
The American military invasion of Grenada and Panama to overthrow and imprison their leaders. Over 500,000 Iraqi children died due to sanctions, to which Secretary of State Madeleine Albright commented, ‘It is a price we are willing to pay.’ Ms. Albright never paid a price; half a million Iraqi children paid with their lives.
The 2003 illegal war of aggression against Iraq, where Secretary of State Colin Powell lied to the world about WMDs. NATO’s occupation of Afghanistan for 20 years, a full decade after Osama bin Laden’s death, which was the entire reason for the invasion in the first place. NATO’s destruction of Libya and subsequent murder of its president, Muammar Gaddafi. News of President Gaddafi’s violent death was greeted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who laughed and stated, ‘We came, we saw, he died.’ This intervention turned Libya from Africa’s most developed and wealthy country into a failed state with open-air slave markets.
President Obama supported Al Qaeda in the 13-year dirty war against Syria. This was evidenced by Hillary Clinton advisor Jake Sullivan, who would later serve as President Biden’s National Security Advisor, commenting that ‘Al Qaeda is on our side in Syria.’ This would morph into Operation Timber Sycamore, with Obama’s government sending billions of dollars to support ISIS-linked militants to overthrow the Syrian government of Bashar Al Assad.
In December 2024, the government of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad finally fell to ‘ISIS militants,’ with Abu Mohammad al-Julani taking over as interim president. Abu Mohammad al-Julani, now rebranded as Ahmed al-Sharaa, had a $10 million bounty on his head by the American FBI. This bounty stemmed from his violent behavior fighting American occupation of Iraq and later becoming the leader of ISIS in Syria.
America, Europe, and Canada were quick to recognize the former ISIS head chopper as Syria’s legitimate leader and revised their sanctions policy, removing Al Nusra [read ISIS] from their terrorist organization lists. President Trump even hosted Mr. Jolani/al-Sharaa at the White House, HQ of the ‘free world.’ During his trip to the United States, Syrian President [read former ISIS leader] Ahmed al-Sharaa was legitimized further by being invited to speak as Syrian President at the United Nations General Assembly. Just in case the world missed his trip to the White House.
For many observers in America and around the world, the real mask-off moment was America and all of its allies, including Canada, remaining silent and supportive of Israel in its genocidal campaign of destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza. A live-streamed, full-scale, high-tech destruction of the Palestinian people has been broadcast and gone viral on social media for over two years. The mask fell off for many many years ago, but only in 2026 for PM Carney.
Importance of PM Carney’s Speech
The previous may seem like a rant in which the author derides PM Carney. This is only partially true. PM Carney’s speech did hold a couple of very important points. First, Carney stated that “for decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, and we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection. We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, and that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”
This coincides with the authors’ previous points of history, according to Carney, beginning in 2025. International relations and foreign policy have always been based on interests, and in the world of interests and power, some are more equal than others. For Carney and other Western leaders, an unfair world is fine, as long as it benefits them.
Second, Carney stated, “We shouldn’t allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong if we choose to wield them together…it means naming reality. Stop invoking the rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is—a system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using economic integration as coercion. It means acting consistently, applying the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window. It means building what we claim to believe in, rather than waiting for the old order to be restored.”
This speaks to a second truth. Maybe the old order was familiar, but it certainly wasn’t just, democratic, or fair, nor was it based on values of the Enlightenment or equality. The old order was good for the small minority in the Western core. Far less so for the developing world that has had enormous amounts of violence meted out to its states and peoples.
Concluding Thoughts on the Rules-Based International Order
Aimé Césaire, Franz Fanon, and other postcolonial thinkers have previously pointed out Western hypocrisy. Césaire captures it best by noting that Hitler’s crime was not genocide or aggressive war. Hitler’s crime was genocide against ‘white people in white Europe’ and waging aggressive war, which subjugated other Europeans. Césaire’s framing of history’s most notorious European leader is an apt comparison to the current situation.
PM Carney, European leaders, and other US allies are not angry that violence, injustice, and repression have been dealt out during the years of their ‘rules-based international order.’ No, they are angry, disgusted, and repulsed because elements of what was meted out to the developing 3rd world, which they participated in, are now being turned around and used on them. Extortion, gangsterism, economic coercion, and threats to territorial sovereignty are now being visited upon weak and vulnerable Western alliance states. The very states that stood silent or participated when it was distant and ‘authoritarian’ countries that did not share their values were the ones who were being preyed upon.
PM Carney’s speech garnered mass praise worldwide because of his performative theater of ‘standing up to the bully Trump.’ However, to this author’s eye, PM Carney’s speech was an exercise of Western hypocritical irony, sprinkled with half-truths. In its totality, PM Carney’s speech was ‘Bullshit on Steroids.’ A fitting way to close Carney’s rupture of the old order: mourn it not and get ready for much more chaos. President Trump is only entering the 2nd year of his 2nd term; three years of instability and chaos await us all.
