The Carney speech

Canadian PM Mark Carney got a lot of attention for his speech at Davos where he bluntly said the liberal rules based order we have had for decades is dead, and we need to realise it.

His full speech is here. Some extracts:

Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.

No punches pulled.

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.

You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.

This is correct. It is not just about Trump and the US. It is also about Europe being dependent on Russian gas and about countries like NZ being too dependent on China. Integration can become a took for subordination.

On plurilateral trade, we’re championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans Pacific Partnership and the European Union, which would create a new trading bloc of 1.5 billion people. 

A great idea.

Argue, the middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.

Sadly we are not a middle power, but Australia is. We need to work more closely with Australia.

We know the old order is not coming back. 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 most to gain from genuine cooperation.

The powerful have their power.

But we have something too – the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.

Trump may go in 2028, but things won’t return to 2015. The great powers will not try to rebuild a rules based system that limits them.

NZ needs to be working with Australia, Canada, the EU and others to make sure we are not on the menu.

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