Carney’s Davos Speech And International Law: Who Is On The Menu?

A few months back, in January, Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a remarkable speech in Davos that garnered a lot of media attention around the world, most of it very positive. Carney was credited with saying important things that no other leader has said publicly.

Carney made reference to something written by renowned writer and former Czech President Vaclav Havel titled The Power of the Powerless. These are Carney’s exact words:

“Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: ‘Workers of the world unite’. He doesn’t believe it, no-one does, but he places a sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists – not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

Havel called this ‘living within a lie’.

The system’s power comes not from its truth, but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true, and its fragility comes from the same source. When even one person stops performing, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack. Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.”

In effect, China, The US, and other countries have broken or bent international law while other countries could do little. Certainly, the US has been powerless, like rare exceptions like during the 1950s Korean War, because there are 5 countries with UN security Council vetoes. The UN and its institutions are deeply flawed, but better than nothing, though in other cases, the US or other countries are not even members or signatories to laws, courts or institutions.

Carney noted that we are “in the midst of a rupture, not a transition”, and that “You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination”, and argued this can lead to a world where nations try to become fortresses, losing benefits by doing so.

The response Mark Carney laid out was essentially that instead of building fortresses, middle powers (or allies) like Canada should diversify away from the global “hegemons” and seek alliances or partnerships with countries other than the hegemons.

Fine, but what happens to international law, the UN, and the other institutions that have been ineffective some times in the past or present, though not all of the time?

Carney did not suggest that we just give up and shut down the UN, or that Canada and other nations should ignore or dismantle international agreements and institutions, or only keep those that seem to be effective and enforceable. Do middle powers instead protest and take action to replace or rebuild institutions so that hegemons are not able to ignore or exempt themselves? Do we just accept that we live in a world of “might makes right” and at best “tit for tat” reciprocity?

Of course, China has been ignoring international law and building islands in the South China Sea, in waters China claims but nobody else recognizes – China is certainly one of the hegemons Carney is pointing to. Chinese ships and airplanes have often harassed or acted recklessly towards those of the US, Canada, and other allies in or over these waters and around Taiwan.

Let me provide an example to illustrate how this situation may play out further down the road. Say that we skip ahead to 2030, and Trump is gone from the White House, Xi Jinping is still leading China, and is impatient about the “reunification” of Taiwan, which China views as a breakaway province. By 2030, Taiwan’s biggest companies like TSMC have built facilities in the US or elsewhere, and China itself has become self sufficient in advanced computer chips, so Taiwan has fewer geopolitical “cards” to play.

China decides not to invade Taiwan, but instead to make life so difficult that Taiwan has little choice but to cave in. So, China finds some excuse and announces a blockade of Taiwan, starting with oil tankers or other ships bringing in energy or resources. Taiwan’s economy would not be able to withstand this, even if airplanes are not embargoed and can still come and go. People might start to flee by flying to any country that will take them – and unfortunately for Taiwan, the richest and best and brightest will be the ones most able and likely to leave.

It may be pointless for the US, Canada, and other countries to try to place a similar embargo on China. China is making itself embargo proof – such as by shifting away from coal and oil to solar panels.

Historian and scholar Adam Tooze gave a fascinating lecture in the United Kingdom in October 2025 titled Electrostates, Petrostates, and the New Cold War, in which he explained how China is outpacing the US in a variety of areas – on top of the fact that under Trump, the US itself is shifting away from renewable/green energy. China is the world’s eighth largest oil producer with the 13th largest reserves, but it will likely increase its ability to import oil from Russia over the next few years. Even though China is currently heavily dependent on coal for electricity generation, it is moving away from fossil fuels at a rapid pace.

In the event of a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, Canada, the European Union, and even the US itself would likely complain that China is acting improperly and violating international laws. These countries would likely take some action.

Maybe there would be an airlift organized to help Taiwan, much as the US airlifted in coal and food to Berlin when the Soviet Union cut off road and rail access to West Berlin in 1948. Perhaps countries would apply tariffs, boycotts, or other actions against China to protest its predatory actions against Taiwan. Punitive actions like this would become likelier if Taiwan lost electrical power and food imports, particularly if people were dying because of the lack of electricity to supply hospitals and medical treatment like dialysis.

Uh, but wait, this is what the United States is doing right now as I write this – to Cuba. The United State is not at war with Cuba and has not been attacked by Cuba, or even experienced terrorist attacks by agents of Cuba. It is important to note that the US was behind the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion, and tried to assassinate Fidel Castro over 600 times by one count, with the 2006 movie 638 Ways to Kill Castro looking at this.

JFK did place an embargo on Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and had the captain of a Russian ship not disobeyed orders, there may have been a nuclear war. But there are no allegations now that Cuba is planning on hosting nuclear weapons, or trying to acquire enriched uranium to build its own – unlike the allegations against Iran.

But so far, the Canadian government has been silent. Other NATO allies have also been silent, and I can see nothing happening at the UN opposing US actions against Cuba. Mexico was at one point planning on sending ships filled with oil to Cuba, but backed off at the last minute. Trump was threatening 100% tariffs against any country that sent oil to Cuba, though it is unclear exactly what tariffs are still open to him given the US Supreme Court’s ruling against Trump on the IEEPA tariffs.

US threats and actions are certainly possible under Trump, and are not always a bluff. The US also had a blockade or embargo on Venezuela, and was blowing up small boats it alleged were smuggling drugs, even killing survivors.

In a widely seen clip, Trump and a reporter had the following exchange about his idea of “taking” Cuba:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “I do believe I’ll be the honour of — having the honour of taking Cuba. That’d be a good honour. It’s a big honour.”

REPORTER: “Taking Cuba?”

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “Taking Cuba in some form, yeah. Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it — think I can do anything I want with it, you want to know the truth.”

Meanwhile, not a peep from Prime Minister Mark Carney. It seems like Canada is entirely abandoning holding the US accountable in any way for bullying countries under the “Donroe Doctrine”. Trump is not even ruling out using force, despite his previous statement that he intends to make Canada the “51st state” solely through economic pressure. So, is an embargo of necessities mere ”economic pressure” in Trump’s mind?

The desire of US governments or politicians to get regime change is Cuba is NOT about communism. The Cold War battle against communism is over. Countries like China and Vietnam are still run by Communist parties, but that does not seem to bother the US (of course, these countries are more like traditional fascist parties than actual Communist countries during the Cold War). And Cuba is partly capitalist – small businesses are legal, many tourist hotels are run by foreign corporations, and Canada’s Sherritt corporation has a massive mining operation on the eastern end of the island.

This is not about Cuba being independent or democratic – it is about Cuba being under some level of control of the US again. Prior to Castro, the Americans had essentially dictated to Cuba that the US would have a right to interfere in Cuba if the US felt it necessary, as well as getting a lease with no expiration date on the Guantanamo Bay military base.

There is a simple way to explain this: As Taiwan is to China, Cuba is to the USA.

The US stole, won, or bought most of the land in the American West from Mexico, but the US has accepted for 100 years that Mexico is independent and sovereign, in the same way that it accepted Canada as sovereign – at least until Trump started talking about the annexation of Canada. But Cuba is different.

China has been quiet, and done little or nothing to help Cuba or Venezuela – or even Iran.

So, Mark Carney seems to have become the Anti-Pearson. Pearson actually spoke out against the US military involvement in the Vietnam War. Carney seems to be “elbows down” – too afraid of US retaliation to criticize the US over Cuba or Venezuela.

If Carney is calling for Canada to collaborate with other middle powers, then why is there no attempt to get other NATO or G7 countries to complain about US actions on Cuba?

Canada benefited from the rules-based international order. Even though it was not perfect, Canada should not and cannot accept a world where “might makes right” and we are afraid to even speak up when we see the former “leader of the free world” bullying other countries. It is like the poem by Martin Niemöller: “First they came for the Communists, And I did not speak out, Because I was not a Communist…”

Our Prime Minister’s speech included the line “the middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu”. Well, Trump has decided on the appetizers, and we need to do something now to avoid being a main course later.