That was fast. Canada´s prime minister Carney just declared the "liberal rules-based world order" dead and called on "the middle powers" to build an alternative. This in a speech at Davos. Note the fine print: Canada wants closer relations with China, Qatar and India. What did I tell you, fam. By threatening to dump or attack his allies, Trump is driving them into the hands of America´s geopolitical competitors?!
*Is* he a Manchurian candidate or KGB asset? Probably not, but his foreign politics are increasingly looking even more adventurist than those of the Bush administration! Bush (junior) infamously said "If you´re not for us, you´re against us". Trump´s message seems to be "Even if you´re for us, I´m against you anyway".
Another fine print: Canada is currently extremely dependent economically on the United States. So is the European Union. It will be...interesting...to see how this chicken race to the bottom ends.
Canada´s Mark Carney calls on world to adapt to "rupture" caused by "great powers"
Here is a quote from Carney´s speech: "We knew that the story about the rules-based order was partially false... We knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused and the victim. This fiction was useful [because of the goods provided by American hegemony]... So we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition... You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination."
ReplyDeleteCertainly sounds as if he is appealing to BRICS or something like that. Of course, Canada has long pretended to be neutral when it was really a US ally, so there´s that. But maybe in context, this really is a "rupture". Or rapture...
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