At the end of January 2026 leaders of nations and businesses gathered in Davos, Switzerland to attend the annual gathering held by the World Economic Forum. It was at this meeting that the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, gave what might become the most consequential speech of the twenty-first century. Mr. Carney's speech wont be cited as the end of the American-led world-order, but rather the first acknowledgement of such and an effort to shape what follows.
That is a determination that will have to be made by historians with the benefit of hindsight. Instead I want to focus on another part of Mr. Carney's speech. Addressing the forum Mr. Carney said,
For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.
We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.
This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.
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.
Interestingly, Mr. Carney is not the first politician to make this observation. Trump came to a similar conclusion nine years earlier. Though Trump expressed the idea much, much less eloquently than Mr. Carney. In the 2017 pre-Super Bowl interview Trump had the following exchange with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly;
O'Reilly: You talked to Putin last week. You had a busy week last week!
Trump: Busy week and a half...
O'Reilly: Do you respect Putin?
Trump: I do respect him.
O'Reilly: Do you? Why?
Trump: Well, I respect a lot of people, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna get along with him. He's a leader of his country. I say it's better to get along with Russia than not, and if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world. Major fight. That's a good thing. Will I get along with them? I have no idea.
O'Reilly: Putin's a killer.
Trump: A lot of killers. Got a lot of killers. What you think our country's so innocent? You think our country's so innocent?
O'Reilly: I don't know of any government leaders that are killers in America.
Trump: Well... take a look at what we've done too. We've made a lot of mistakes. I've been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.
O'Reilly: Mistakes are different than...
Trump: A lot of mistakes, OK? But a lot of people were killed so a lot of killers around. Believe me.
As uncomfortable as it is to acknowledge as an American this has been true for quite some time. America has used our hard power to influence elections, destabilize regimes, assassinate political leaders, and invade foreign countries. We have leveraged our position as the global reserve currency to wield our unique financial power to impose sanctions as a means of coercion.
At the same time we have shielded ourselves from the consequences of our actions. We are protected from repercussions from the UN given our permanent position on the Security Council which allows us to veto any attempts by the UN to limit US action around the globe. The US has also refused to sign major pieces of international law, including the International Criminal Court, so as to not subject ourselves to enforcement of the rules based order which we helped to create.
Just as Mr. Carney is correct in his assessment now, Trump was correct in his assessment back in 2017. However, as Mr. Carney suggests in his speech something has changed in the past decade which has lead to the rupture, as he describes it, and not a transition.
I would argue that what has changed is Trump abandoning the lie back in 2017. This is part of the appeal of Trump to his supports; yes he is corrupt and he lies, but all politicians are corrupt and lie, at least Trump is honest about his corruption and his lies. While I believe this is a ridiculous justification, there is an implication to this that his supporters are missing, and I missed until recently.
Even if it were true that every other politician was a closeted corrupt liar (its not), that would be better than having every politician be an openly corrupt liar. I want to be clear here; I am not saying that corruption and lying is good, or that perpetuating a lie to cover up a misdeed makes that misdeed better, but the lie is a constraint. The lie is an acknowledgment from the perpetrator that an action is wrong, or at the very least there would be a negative consequence for the action if it became public knowledge.
Its why no President before Trump sued the IRS for $10 billion, in a case that they will both be plaintiff and defendant and will be in a position to order the Department of Justice to settle the case out of court. Or why no President before Trump received a $500 million investment into their company, seemingly in return for highly advanced AI chips.
The brazenness of Trumps corruption is unlike anything we have seen from any President before him and that has resulted in Trump profiting from the Presidency like no President before him. Either because he does not believe these acts actually constitute corruption or because he does not believe he will face consequence,s he is willing to commit these corrupt acts. So far, at least, he is correct about the later point.
On the international stage Trump has arbitrarily and capriciously levied tariffs on countries around the world, indiscriminately wielding our economic might as a hammer against friend and foe alike. Just as Trump expanded the use of America's economic force, so he did with our military force; bombing seven countries including Iran, Nigeria, and Venezuela. Elected as a peace President Trump seemingly does not like wars so much as he likes acts of war. Of those seven countries, military action was presumably legal under domestic law in six of those cases based on the Authorization for Use of Military Action passed by Congress in 2001, but not for Venezuela. Further, Trump has threatened to bomb Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Canada, and Greenland as well. This culminates with the Trump administration entering Venezuela, kidnapping the leader of the country, and declaring it was under US rule.
As I mentioned earlier, these actions are not necessarily unprecedented for America. What is new is they were carried out by a leader that has not maintained the lie that we are adhering to the rules based order and our actions are ultimately in the interest of furthering liberal democracy.
I will say again, the lie was always bullshit. America was always, at least in part, acting in its own self-interest. But our actions were constrained by maintaining the lie that a rules based order existed and we would respect and uphold that order. As Mr. Carney said, "we benefited from its predictability". But Trump has abandoned the lie, his actions shattered it, and he said himself that he would not be constrained by anything other than his own morality.
America was not always perfect, and whether or not it is correct to believe our leaders always acted with a benevolent intent, they were limited by the need to maintain the lie. They maintained the lie so that they would not face international backlash from allies or domestic backlash from citizens. And leaders lied to themselves; believing America's actions around the world were righteous and good. To believe that America acts with a righteous and moral intent is to believe there are certain lines that will not be crossed. That is all gone now. Trump is correct again that he is the only constraint on his power and that should concern us all.
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