Mark Carney’s Speech at Davos "New World Order"
January 21, 2026 9:01 AM Subscribe
In Davos today, Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, told the world, “We are in the midst of a rupture.” The rules-based international order is no longer an automatic route to prosperity and security, he said, as the world’s most powerful nations now use that system’s economic integration to coerce other countries. In its place, Carney offered a different vision than the “world of fortresses” made up of major powers with spheres of influence that Trump and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin are trying to build. [If “middle powers” pursue a system he called “variable geometry,” he said, they can rebalance the world …
Mark Carney’s Speech at Davos "New World Order"
January 21, 2026 9:01 AM Subscribe
In Davos today, Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, told the world, “We are in the midst of a rupture.” The rules-based international order is no longer an automatic route to prosperity and security, he said, as the world’s most powerful nations now use that system’s economic integration to coerce other countries. In its place, Carney offered a different vision than the “world of fortresses” made up of major powers with spheres of influence that Trump and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin are trying to build. If “middle powers” pursue a system he called “variable geometry,” he said, they can rebalance the world and help solve global problems while still building strength at home.
His vision is a version of the“diplomatic variable geometry” of former U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken, but Carney’s vision decenters the U.S., noting that middle powers must work together to be at the table to avoid being on the menu. Under a system of variable geometry, countries can develop infrastructure and trade at home, strengthening their own nations, while negotiating new international agreements, as Canada has done recently with China, Qatar, India, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Thailand, the Philippines, and Mercosur, a South American trade bloc made up of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
But for international affairs, variable geometry means creating international “coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests,” “coalitions that work issue by issue with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations. What it’s doing is creating a dense web of connections across trade, investment, culture on which we can draw for future challenges and opportunities.”
“We know the old order is not coming back,” Carney said. “We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers, the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from genuine cooperation.”
(Summary via Heather Cox Richardson)