National Review Online
Friday, January 23, 2026
On one level, it’s impossible not to sympathize with
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, leader of a country whose pride has been
routinely trampled by the president of the United States.
Carney is prime minister precisely because Donald Trump
offended Canada’s sense of national pride and threatened its prosperity, with
his shoot-from-the-hip tariff policy. Giving ample room for Canadians to be
proud of their history, their free society, and their economic achievements
requires that we don’t remind them too harshly of their junior-partner status.
Carney used his speech at Davos this week to describe his
view of some of the problems in the current international order:
Over the past two decades, a
series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics have laid bare the
risks of extreme global integration. 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.
Even if you accept this analysis (and there’s truth to
it), Mark Carney’s recent overtures to China are deeply unwise, and his Davos
speech trying to justify them was unconvincing.
Canada is, no doubt, in an interesting global position.
It is a Pacific Coast trading power, as well as an Atlantic one, and it has a
large Chinese diaspora living in its major cities. Xi’s economic program may
appear to be a more stable platform than America’s, given that tariff rates can
radically change based on the president’s momentary preferences and may be
overturned or significantly altered by the Supreme Court.
But can Mark Carney honestly look at the last century of
U.S.-Canada relations and want to replace them with the model that China is
demonstrating in Africa or even with its largest neighbors like India? China
has been trying to adjust to the growing decoupling with America. Now its toxic
mercantile practices are being felt in other parts of the world, particularly
Europe. China found itself to have productive overcapacity due to its central
planning, but it’s now doubling down on this error and quickly antagonizing the
trading partners it is targeting to replace America. The same dynamic can
easily overwhelm Canada and increase hostility with its not-always-so-friendly
neighbor to the south. Alluding to security concerns, Trump has already said
Chinese cars won’t be able to drive from Canada across America’s border.
Carney is right to champion Canada as a capable midlevel
power in the world, one that doesn’t have to rely on nostalgia and can be a
productive, creative geopolitical player in this new era. But history and
geography have bound our two nations together, as have an endless number of
shared enterprises, from car factories to energy companies to the NHL, not to
mention countless mixed families who consider both nations their home.
Carney said in his Davos speech he wants Canada to follow
its values in this new world order; that militates toward sticking with the
Anglo-democratic, not the communist, superpower.
We urge Carney to productively manage Canada’s sense of
wounded national pride and to think harder about the long-term interest of his
country. We urge Donald Trump to remember that wide and deep trade with close
allies need not be seen as a zero-sum game, but as a great long-term
geopolitical asset in itself.
There’s been much talk out of the White House about the
Monroe Doctrine, and much in the Trump movement about restoring American
greatness. One obvious implication of both these is that we treat our
hemispheric neighbors as our friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment