The world order we're leaving behind may be replaced by no order at all

"The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, inspired a wave of enthusiastic nodding among the cosmopolitan crowd gathered in Davos last month when he took to the podium and proclaimed that the world order underwritten by the United States, which prevailed in the west throughout the postwar era, was over. The organizing principle that emerged from the ashes of the second world war, that interdependence would promote world peace by knitting nations' interests together in a drive for common security and prosperity, no longer works."

"The US blew it up. Donald Trump came to believe that every other country treated the US as a chump, free riding on its security guarantee and abusing its open market no matter that the United States set most of the rules underpinning the postwar architecture, and broke them when it suited its interests, or that the rules enabled an era of remarkable American prosperity."

"In an act of bravery not often experienced among the jet setters in the Swiss Alps, the Canadian prime minister challenged every other country to accept the loss of American leadership and build an alternative global architecture that might bypass the great powers intent on bending everybody else to their will. Great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited, he said."

The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, proclaimed that the world order underwritten by the United States throughout the postwar era was over. The organizing principle that interdependence would promote world peace no longer works. The collapse is linked to U.S. policy, including Donald Trump's view that other countries free-ride on U.S. security and abuse open markets despite U.S. rule-setting. Carney urged other countries to accept diminished American leadership and to create alternative global architecture to bypass coercive great powers. He warned that tariffs, financial infrastructure and supply chains are being used as tools of coercion. Friedrich Merz warned the rights-and-rules order is being destroyed.

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