Chartbook 429 From transition to rupture: The evolution of Carney-thought 2019-2026.

“Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”

Though it was couched in extremely abstract terms and though he avoided any mention of Trump, Mark Carney’s speech at Davos on Tuesday was by far the most weighty reaction we have seen so far from any head of government to the crisis unleashed in the international relations of the West, by the aggression of the Trump Presidency.

The contrast to preceding speakers was striking.

Larry Fink et al in the WEF leadership avoided any mention of the most divisive issues in Euro-American relations.

Ursula von der Leyen offered a clear but mild statement of a European position. All she had to say on the topic of Trump’s threat of tariffs over Greenland was that it would be a “mistake”.

Macron was more unbuttoned - to say the least. He referred to the absurdity of being forced to threaten the US with anti-coercion measure. He described the situation as “crazy”. At one point, several of us thought we heard the President asking, under his breath, whether the whole crisis was about the size of someone’s “dick”. I wouldn’t trust my own memory but for the fact that my neighbor turned to me in amazement. I concede it may have been a hallucination brought on by the reflection of his aviator sunglasses.

Carney’s address was of a very different kind. He struck a note of appropriate seriousness and high moral temper.

It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must. And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety. Well, it won’t.

In a dramatic flourish, he invoked the 1978 essay by Czech dissident Václav Havel entitled The Power of the Powerless, to argue that it is essential to refuse to repeat a lie, even if that may be the path of least resistance. And then, Carney went on to describe the uncomfortable modus vivendi of recent years.

For decades, countries like Canada prospered under

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