If We're Not at the Table, We're on the Menu: Carney at Davos

DAVOS: Canada "stands firmly" with Greenland and Denmark, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday, after US President Donald Trump vowed his plan to take control of the autonomous Danish territory was irreversible.

"Canada stands firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully supports their unique right to determine Greenland's future," Carney told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Carney's address to the world's political and financial elites also touched on themes he has addressed since entering Canadian politics last year, namely that a system of US-led global governance will not return to a pre-Trump normal.

"We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition," Carney said.

Canada was one of the first countries "to hear the wake?up call" that a fundamental change was underway, the prime minister added.

He said Canada had benefitted from an era of "American hegemony" but now had to pivot, with great powers increasingly using their economic power as leverage.

"The question for middle powers, like Canada, is not whether to adapt to this new reality. We must. The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls - or whether we can do something more ambitious."

He defined the current era as of "great power rivalry" adding: "great powers can afford for now to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity, and the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not."

"Middle powers must act together, because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu," Carney said.

Carney delivered his Davos speech after Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper reported that the Canadian military has developed a model response to a US invasion.

Citing two unnamed senior government officials, the paper said the Canadian response model centers on insurgency?style tactics, like those used in Afghanistan by fighters who resisted Soviet and later US forces.

In an invasion scenario, US forces would likely overtake Canada's strategic position within days, the Globe reported, citing the military model.

After Trump's 2024 election and in the early months of his new term, he repeatedly referred to the United States' northern neighbour as the 51st state and said a merger would benefit Canada.

Trump's annexation talk has eased in recent months, but overnight he posted an image on his social media platform of a map showing Canada and Venezuela covered in the US flag, implying a full American takeover of both countries.