At this week’s session of the United Nations, world leaders were given two very divergent views on the future of the international order. Donald Trump dived straight into the darkness. He made an unhinged speech bragging about his ability to destroy the Iranian civilization and denouncing action on killer AI as a “hoax.” The speech was frightening because it showed just how unmoored the United States has become.
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But as Trump was ranting, UN delegates were discussing an offer put forth by Prime Minister Carney, which represents an alternate path to gangster politics. The offer came in the form of a public letter he penned with President William Ruto of Kenya, Brazilian President Lula da Silva, and European Council President António Costa. It is a rallying call for middle powers to take the power back.
As I said in a previous Substack, we are living in weeks where decades of changes are happening. And the rapid speed of change being led by Canada continues.
It has only been a week since Carney’s groundbreaking speech at the United Nations. Since then, he has met with President Emmanuel Macron on the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. The location, just 13 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, is symbolic.
And defiant.
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The Donroe Doctrine of Project 2025 insists that everything in the American hemisphere will be under US control. Maybe Trump didn’t know that France is right on our border. He knows now.
France will defend their interests in the hemisphere. And they will do this with their ally Canada.
Then the PM met with Norwegian President Jonas Gahr Støre to talk Arctic sovereignty, a joint critical minerals strategy and the development of an “enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement” within the next year.
This meeting happened as Trump was posting memes of Greenland covered in the American flag and boasting of a massive military expansion on Greenland soil. The fact is, the United States has been a weak player in asserting control in the far north. They don’t have the icebreakers or the training.
They have always relied on help from Canada and Norway. Now these two countries are working together to ensure our sovereignty in the north.
But the most significant move this past week was the joint letter with Kenya, Brazil and the European Security Council. It shows that Canada understands the need to include the Global South in any restructuring of the global order.
The letter has pledged the establishment of the ‘Partners for Multilateralism’ (P4M).
The focus of P4M will be to support reform at the UN and other multilateral institutions, to make them more representative, legitimate, effective and trusted. But it is really a call to arms to resist the increasingly autocratic rule coming from Washington and the Kremlin.
The letter states:
“The language of spheres of influence and power politics is back. Economic ties are increasingly used as instruments of pressure and coercion while inequality is on the rise, both within and among countries.”
“Cooperation is therefore not an act of idealism, it is a practical necessity. The question is not whether multilateralism can survive, but how it must evolve to meet the realities of our time.”
The signatories list the existential threats posed by AI, climate catastrophe and the disastrous handling of the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz as reasons for middle powers to assert their power and sovereignty.
“[These] principles are not negotiable - sovereign equality, territorial integrity, the peaceful settlement of disputes, the prohibition of the threat or use of force, international humanitarian law, sustainable development, human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
In a bold rebuke to Putin and Trump, they quote UN Secretary-General António Guterres:
“the superpowers are discovering their limits”.
To respond to the failure of the big powers approach, it is necessary to reassert the power of collective action by the international community.
“We believe that the international community must rediscover the extraordinary potential of collective action.
“Competition does not have to become confrontation, if we create channels of dialogue and co-operation. Sovereignty is strengthened, not diminished, when countries work together to address shared challenges. National interests are often best advanced through collective action on such challenges.
“As we contend with a world order that is transforming fast, we call on other international leaders to join us in choosing co-operation over fragmentation, law over power and shared responsibility over division.”
This is an extraordinary statement written with the idealism and determination not seen since the late 1940s, when the world came together to ensure the international rule of law would be strengthened to ensure that the mass crimes of the Holocaust would never be repeated.
Will the rest of the world rally to the Canadian banner?
It remains to be seen.
Will Trump take our efforts to rally the international community as a threat?
Count on it.
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Make no mistake, this is a line-in-the-sand moment. Canada is standing for a better vision of the future.
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