The world must stand up to bully Trump

Up until Monday, only two people had been given a standing ovation after their speech by attendees at the World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering in Davos, Switzerland.

The first was Nelson Mandela, the man who brought democracy to our country; the second Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky, after his country was invaded by Russia.

But Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney earned the applause for comments which could well go down in history for the warning he gave the world about the “rupture” in the world’s system of governance… and the ominous future it might bring for the globe’s smaller nations.

It was easy to interpret Carney’s assessment as a reaction to the spiteful bullying foreign policy emanating from the White House under President Donald Trump – but it was more than that.

Certainly, Trump has been pursuing his aims under the “might is right” banner and, while he may be crass and vary between a schoolground bully and a mafia don, he is not the only one who thinks power always gets what it wants.

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He is determined to get Greenland. Russia, likewise, won’t give up on seizing swathes of Ukraine. Nor will China drop its insistence on claiming back Taiwan as its own territory.

Carney’s warning was about the demise of the old, “rules-based international order” system which, under US hegemony – as he admitted – saw many nations benefit from a structure which “helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes”.

Now that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have shown rules mean nothing, it is, as Carney noted, the time for “middle powers” to stand together.

His ominous assessment was: “If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”

But, can the world stand up to bullies like Trump, or will it meekly crumble?

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