Carney's Davos speech written at 4 a.m., Trump's volatile call with Trudeau, and other things we learned from a WSJ article

This week, the Wall Street Journal published a two-part series, with the first part titled “ There Is No Going Back: The Inside Story of Europe’s Rupture With America .” While it looked at the general situation in Europe, the second was all about Canada’s role, and specifically that of Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Its headline was “ The Canadian Who Steered Europe Away From the U.S. ,” with the subhead: “Facing threats from Trump, Mark Carney emerged as a central figure in a project to reshape the Western alliance.”

Here are six things we learned from the Journal’s story.

51st state threats went further than we knew

In February 2025, Donald Trump told then-prime minister Justin Trudeau in a phone call that he might tear up a 1908 treaty that defines the boundaries between Canada and the United States.

According to the Journal, who spoke to two (unnamed) people familiar with the matter, Trump then added: “I tear that up and your whole country unravels.”

It also notes that when Trudeau’s envoys tried to dissuade Trump’s annexation tendencies during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago, “the president came up with a neat solution: just split the northern neighbor into two states, one red, the other blue.”

Carney’s braggadocio

When one of Carney’s European counterparts mentioned their difficulties with the personalities in Trump’s second administration, two Canadian officials said he responded: “I have to deal with these guys every day.”

And during the G-20 meeting in South Africa last November, British leader Keir Starmer told the Canadian PM that the West had to salvage its relationship with America. Carney’s response: “We don’t have a relationship to keep!”

Help from an unlikely source

According to the Journal’s sources, shortly before Carney took power the Canadian government had reached out to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner for advice on how to refute Trump’s unsupported claims that Canada was a major source of fentanyl. Kushner suggested a video to persuade the president that Canada was serious about border security.

However, the paper added: “Instead of placating Trump, it seemed to fuel his interest in revisiting the placement of the border.”

Quick work

The article mentions that Carney, on his way from China to Switzerland for the World Economic Forum annual meeting last January, “woke at 4 a.m. to write his Davos speech in a single two-hour sitting” during a stopover in Doha.

The speech drew rapturous applause for his rallying cry for Western nations to stand up to great powers or “be on the menu,” but Trump struck back the next day when he said “ Canada lives because of the United States ,” adding: “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.“

Hitting the books

The article notes that, under Carney, Canadian senior officials started reading clinical studies on impulsivity to understand Trump’s psychology, as well as biographies focusing on the president’s business and media career.

“They speculated that his bid for Canada was a negotiating tactic aimed at ‘price discovery.’ In other words, propose an outrageous idea and test the market reaction.”

Future plans

According to the article, Carney’s team has been quietly pitching his ideas to Andy Burnham, the British Labour MP and former Mayor of Manchester considered likely to be that country’s next prime minister. Burnham’s chief economic adviser, Andy Haldane, was once Carney’s Bank of England deputy.

Carney is also said to be working with Alexander Stubb, president of Finland, on an article on how their countries can navigate a shifting world order.

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