Canada needs diplomacy to reach out to growing economies
For a sovereign foreign policy rooted in dialogue, not militarization
Heads of state at the 2025 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin, China. It was the largest summit in the SCO’s history. Photo courtesy the Prime Minister’s Office of India/Wikimedia Commons.
The return of Donald Trump to the White House has caused a shift in long-established patterns in the conduct of international relations. Many countries around the world have been grappling with this challenge. For Canada, the issue is particularly acute due to Trump’s trade and tariff threats and their immediate impact on domestic economic interests.
Early expressions of concern emerged in the course of the pandemic, when masks and other medical supplies intended for Canada were diverted to the United States. At that time, several arguments, including my own, were made in favour of diversification. In other words, it was proposed to reduce dependence on the US by strengthening ties with other economic powers.
Carney recognizes the importance of diversification, which has led him to reach out to Europe. This is understandable given his own experience as the head of the Bank of England, as well as Canada’s cultural and historical ties with the Old Continent. However, from an economic perspective, he is seeking support in a region that is in structural decline and experiences persistent social and political crises. The approval ratings of French President Emmanuel Macron (17 percent) and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (26 percent) speak for themselves.
Europe has harmed itself by restricting its purchases of oil and gas from Russia. This has increased energy costs and undermined energy-intensive industries, particularly in Germany. Politically and economically, Europe is becoming what it has always been geographically: the westernmost periphery of Eurasia occupying less than eight percent of the continent. The recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), covering 65 percent of Eurasia and one half of the world’s population, clearly demonstrated where growth is occurring.
The change of administration in Washington has highlighted Europe’s political impotence. Its ruling class has long behaved as an obedient vassal. Paradoxically, the existence of the European Union has facilitated this subjugation. Rather than increasing Europe’s influence, the EU has stripped its member states of the last vestiges of national independence. Sovereign leaders such as Willy Brandt, Charles De Gaulle or Margaret Thatcher are nowhere to be found. It was highly embarrassing to see Europe’s presidents and prime ministers rushing to the White House to be lectured by Trump after his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
Carney is to be commended for his restraint in not joining the Europeans’ collective display of submissiveness or addressing Trump as “daddy.” However, Canada is following the European path of militarization, undermining citizens’ welfare and their social achievements. Speaking recently in Britain, the current NATO Secretary General warned that unless military spending were greatly increased, “you could still have the National Health Service, or in other countries their health systems, the pension system, etcetera, but you had better learn to speak Russian.”
The choice between guns and butter is just as stark in Canada, where poverty has become painfully visible in many major cities. Record inequality is the result of years of government policies that have benefitted the wealthy. Carney, the wealthiest man ever to govern the country, has decided to vastly increase military spending, thereby eroding the social safety net. Albeit without Elon Musk’s chainsaw and histrionics, Carney’s forthcoming “austerity” budget promises to make drastic cuts to the civil service while new fast-track legislation, already passed, will weaken environmental protection and Indigenous rights.
Moreover, Carney makes many fateful decisions alone, without consulting cabinet, Parliament or the population. His resolute and authoritarian style was developed in the corporate and banking world, where democracy is usually left at the door. Old habits die hard, particularly when faced with little opposition.
Trump had long demanded that NATO members pay up. Predictably, most European governments agreed, camouflaging their subservience to Washington with invocations of the Russian threat. This is particularly illogical. NATO officials have acknowledged that the crisis in Ukraine, which resulted in the current war, was instigated by NATO’s plans to expand into the country as part of a strategy to weaken Russia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others have admitted that NATO is waging a proxy war in Ukraine, which explains why Trump resorted to diplomacy to stop it. However, European “diplomacy” with respect to Russia mostly consists of patting Zelensky on the back and hurling insults at Putin.
Carney is more reserved, but sometimes repeats falsehoods, such as the accusation that Putin violated the Minsk accords, despite the fact that both Angela Merkel and François Hollande, who guaranteed the agreement, later admitted that they and the Ukrainian government had never intended to implement it. Demonstrating diplomatic skill, Carney refrains from echoing invectives about Russian “predators,” “ogres” and “cannibals,” like those emanating from European leaders inebriated with self-righteousness. Nevertheless, his policy is based on the same belief that Russia and China are inherently aggressive and must be contained militarily rather than engaged with in meaningful dialogue. The containment of China and Russia reflects American priorities. While Trump has abandoned the Biden administration’s Russophobia, others are not nimble enough to keep up with his twists and turns. Unlike the robust debates that characterized the Cold War era, contemporary media discourse on Russia and China, their security concerns and potential responses, suffers from severe groupthink, both in Europe and Canada.
During Pierre Trudeau’s tenure, Canada demonstrated a certain degree of autonomy, fostering relations with Moscow, Beijing and Havana. Canada has now a more compelling interest to improve relations with major economic and military powers, particularly with the leading SCO nations of China, India and Russia, which, unlike Europe, experience consistent growth. To achieve this, Canada must act as a sovereign nation without antagonizing the United States. Canada knows how to keep its powerful neighbour happy, even if it has hypocritically encouraged Ukraine to do the opposite with respect to Russia. The bold diplomatic initiatives needed to seek peace and restore social spending at home can only result from informed public debate and pressure. This is what democracy is all about.
Yakov M. Rabkin is Professor Emeritus of History at the Université de Montréal and scholar at the Montréal Centre for International Studies (CERIUM). Author of several books, including Science Between the Superpowers and Demodernization. His new title, Le sionisme en 101 citations, will be released later this month.