The quiet-spoken Canadian prime minister has spoken unutterable truths, writes Ted Widmer of The Guardian.
The speech signalled an earthquake. The news, as widely reported, was that Carney was calling off the trade talks that many expected to resolve or reduce the trade frictions that have been in place ever since Trump slapped his first round of tariffs on Canada, shortly after assuming office.
Carney’s words stung, too. We expect student activists to speak truth to power; it’s a surprise when a former executive of Goldman Sachs and a former governor of the Bank of England takes on the role.
He is no bomb-thrower. But no one can deny that his message reached the world; nothing confirms it so much as Trump’s frenzied counterattack on social media. Reading the flurry of puerile insults posted on Truth Social was like watching a punch-drunk boxer throwing sprawling haymakers at an adversary too nimble to be hit.
In contrast to Carney’s sober tone, Trump’s threatened to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America”, called Canadian officials “clowns”,, and dismissed Carney as a “governor” instead of a prime minister, as if contemptuous of Canada’s sovereignty. Of course, he laid the groundwork for Canada’s refusal to cave in as soon as he began his second term with a flurry of claims that Canada should become the 51st state.