Donald Trump threatened Canada’s Mark Carney during his rambling Davos speech on Wednesday (21 January), where he claimed that the nation “only lives because of the United States”. During his address at the World Economic Forum, the US president said that Ottawa should be “grateful” to Washington for all the “freebies” it receives. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements,” he said. It comes after Mr Carney warned that the old world order was in the “midst of a rupture” and was “not coming back,” during his own speech in Switzerland on Tuesday (20 January).
Completely agree, Our whole system of governance is basically designed to prevent the government from doing any sort of sustained planning at scale. It’s incredibly frustrating to watch.
And I really think Trump’s whole strategy right now is to apply maximum pressure to other countries, and then see who responds with weakness. If he sees countries resisting the moves on to softer targets, if they don’t he starts demanding more.