U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney to the White House in October, 2025.Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
Following his recent speech to the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Prime Minister Mark Carney sat down for a question-and-answer session.
Inevitably, the war in Iran came up. The moderator wanted Mr. Carney’s thoughts on what the U.S.’s actions in recent months – kidnapping the leader of a foreign country, bombing Iran – were doing to its standing in the world.
“And I wonder whether we can end up in a situation where the U.S. is feared but not trusted and loved?” the moderator said.
Mr. Carney looked out at the audience, then looked at his inquisitor: “Do you want me to respond to that?” Much laughter ensued.
Carney says Ottawa’s position supporting U.S., Israeli strikes on Iran was taken ‘with regret’
The Prime Minister did, eventually, give an answer, and it revealed a great deal not only about his own mixed messaging on America’s actions in Iran, but about the western world in general. Part of it was a riff on his speech in Davos, saying that the U.S. is using integration as leverage, new tariffs as a means to dictate foreign policy. It’s a form of “charging for access to the U.S. market … monetizing their hegemony.”
But then he went on to say the U.S. could get away with this “for a time,” because of “their current indispensable position in a variety of economic relationships ...”
Their indispensable position.
Mr. Carney knows that if he had denounced the joint U.S.-Israeli actions in Iran it could have come at a great economic cost. At the same time, he was also aware of the folly of looking like an unabashed cheerleader. Consequently, he waffled: first looking like he supported the decision to force regime change in Iran, then later saying he did so “with regret” while calling for negotiations to end the conflict.
In the end, he made almost no one happy.
But he may have spared Canada from any number of consequences from the American President had he taken a hard, uncompromising line.
We have seen what he is threatening to do with Spain, after its Prime Minister denounced the attack on Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump said he’s ordered Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to cut off all economic relations with the country. If it happens, Spain will pay a steep price.
European leaders vary in support of U.S.-Israel military strikes on Iran
But maybe Spaniards feel it’s a price worth paying. They may be lesser for it economically, but at least they will have their dignity. At least they can say their leader was not a grovelling bootlicker who compromised his own sense of self in servitude to a corrupt, deranged U.S. President. (Then again, it’s far easier for Spain to take this position than Canada.)
British PM Keir Starmer bent his knee to Mr. Trump and what did it get him? The President said this week that Mr. Starmer “is not Winston Churchill,” criticizing him for not initially allowing the U.S. access to their airfields for its attacks on Iran. (Mr. Starmer eventually changed his position.) The British Prime Minister, like other Western leaders, is trying to thread that needle between offering some form of rebuke while not angering the American President to the point that he unleashes his wrath on them.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was in the Oval Office this week while Mr. Trump vented about Spain and its decision to not allow the U.S. to use its airfields. Mr. Trump said: “ ... we could use their base if we want. We could just fly in and use it. Nobody’s going to tell us not to use it.” Mr. Merz sat there without saying a word.
Is it difficult to watch? Yes. In a perfect world, all Western leaders would stand up to Mr. Trump and tell him that while Iran is dangerous under its current leadership, and regime change is necessary, you can’t simply upend the world order by starting a war in the Middle East, at the behest of Israel, without so much as engaging your allies.
The death of hundreds of people in Iran on the first day of the war, many of whom were children, due to the bombing of a school, brought back fresh and painful images of the atrocities in Gaza, where thousands of innocent Palestinian children were killed in the conflict. Fresh images of massive bombing of Tehran will appall the world and make the obsequiousness of Western leaders even harder to stomach.
Which brings me back to Mr. Carney’s answer to the moderator’s question in Sydney. He’s right: the U.S. has the economic might to throw its weight around now, but it won’t forever. At least not if the rest of the world continues to form new alliances and partnerships that will eventually neuter some of that power.
The global world order is changing before our eyes. Even if it doesn’t look and sound like that at the moment.