David Frum: Is Carney's 'rupture thesis' a smart foreign policy strategy?

What happens when America's allies stop looking towards the U .S.for global leadership?That's precisely the question we aim to answer in today's episode of Hub Hits.I'm grateful to be joined by David Frum, staff writer at The Atlantic, to discuss, amongst other topics, Prime Minister Mark Carney's so -called rupture thesis, his efforts to build a middle power coalition, and whether the Trump era represents an aberration or more permanent change to global economic and security relations.

The next voice you'll hear is mine in conversation with David Frum.

David, I want to take up a really fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal in the past couple of days that documents growing efforts on the part of Western leaders, excluding the United States, to organize themselves and think about a future in which American global leadership is no longer part of the picture.And what's fascinating is that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seems to be at the center of those efforts.This is obviously an extension of his so -called rupture thesis, something he delivered in his Davos speech in January.The journalists report that he is in regular contact with European leaders, texting, for instance, about how to start to build what he characterized in that speech as a sort of network or alliance of middle powers.Nine or seven months, rather, since he delivered those remarks.Why don't you just take up how you're thinking about that idea and its potential in light of this reporting?

Well, as the Iran war began to go wrong, people around Trump, Trump himself, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others began to say, you know, where are the allies?Where are the allies in all this?Yes.The allies, the what?The allies you threatened to go to war with in January of 2026 when you were going to invade Greenland and British and French troops.and Danish troops too, gathered in Greenland in order to sacrifice their lives to try to call you to your senses if you invaded Greenland.

Those allies, the ones whose last major military undertaking was getting ready to fight you, your Canadian allies whom you threatened to invade and annex.I was struck by the conservatism of American thinking that didn't understand the damage that they themselves had done and how costly that is.Now, the current project, I'm skeptical that it can work.But what it may, as a fallback do, is send a message to the United States that the alliance structure of the world has been changed by Trump.That I think if we were having this conversation a decade and a half ago, I mean, what does the world look like in the 21st century, especially in the second half?You say, well, there's only going to be three big powers, India, China, and the United States.

And there's going to be some movement back and forth among the midsize and smaller powers between those three blocks.But the Americans command the potential for the largest alliance grouping, not only the European Union and Japan, but new allies as well.So you'll probably have most of the middle powers will line up behind the United States against India and China.

Yes.

And that offers, even as India and China become relatively wealthier compared to the old economies, that offers hopes for stability and continuity and democratic preservation in the 21st century.Well, I think what Trump has done is severed the American alliance system.So they're now four blocks, China, India, the United States, plus everybody else milling around and looking for some kind of leadership.And while I think it's probably still true that connections with the United States are easier than connections with either China or India, I think it's just also true, the Americans have shown themselves to be, over a decade, pretty consistently unreliable.and that security guarantees don't mean much, treaties with them don't mean much.So the relationships between other powers in the United States must become more transactional.

In the 20th century, and even the first part of the 21st, the relationships were institutional.You know, you signed up for NATO, you signed up for the World Trade Organization, you signed up for NAFTA or some other trading bloc, and then you were locked into a series of institutions.And there were transactions, of course, but the institution was bigger and more important, and the countries would sometimes make sacrifices on transactions to preserve the institution.I think those institutions don't look very good.credible right now.NATO doesn't look very, after what the United States did on Greenland, and nevermind the abandonment of Ukraine by the Trump administration, NATO doesn't look very credible.

The world trade agreements are worthless, obviously, so we're going to have a series of transactions.It's going to be, I think Trump has put us, and Biden didn't help, has put us on the path to a more transactional and therefore more unstable world in the 21st century, and Carney's trying to reckon with that.

Now, one argument you've made in the context of US domestic politics is that there's been a kind of collective action problem to stand up to Trump that manifested itself, for instance, in the Republican presidential primary.And the same idea applies, arguably, to global affairs, that it's been hard to find anyone or any countries prepared to cooperate, even if it comes at the expense of their individual interests vis -a -vis the U .S.administration.Is there any risk, notwithstanding the issues with the administration, which I agree with you on, is there any risk, David, of Mark Carney kind of raising his hand and assuming implicit responsibility as the de facto leader of that third block?Is there a risk that, well, it may be in the—apart from the

block, well, it may be in our kind of interests in a certain way, in a more direct and short -term point of view or perspective, it actually risks infuriating the president and harming Canadian interests.

That is a real risk, that Trump will be retaliatory.His scope for retaliation is probably beginning to shrink already, and his need for others' help is growing.Yes, it's a risk.But it's also a risk to go on pretending that what has happened didn't happen.And to go on, there's a kind of, I think this impetus is waning, but there's a long time to keep saying, well, let's renegotiate.Even though the Americans ripped up Kuzma and pretended it wasn't there, let's write a new one.

Even though NATO doesn't exist anymore, let's go on attending the meetings and pretending that it's there.That kind of autopilot response also has risks.What I would say is there's also a possible benefit here, which is of calling the Americans to their senses.Because the collective action problem among the Western democracy was historically solved by the United States saying, we're going to take some short -term losses here.That we are going to not press our advantage in every possible way, because we're going to make it up on volume.No, yeah, it's not true that in every single trade agreement, we squeeze every advantage that we could get.

On the other hand, at the end of the day, we have we're at the center of these interlocking agreements, of which we're the prime beneficiary.Everybody copies their corporation law on the American model.Everybody speaks English.Everybody uses Visa.Um, and, uh, we've got a world we like, even though we've paid a little bit more for it than we would pay if we didn't care what the world looked like at all.Um, the United States was this because they had the single, that was the way the Western alliance system worked and the way it worked.

League of Nations didn't, was there was one seat at the table that was so big that they could capture the collective benefits and didn't become, and could overcome the collective action problem.But when that player defects, we're all stuck back in the world of collective action problem, not to be too game theoretical about it.So when you're in a prisoner's dilemma, all you can do is play the moves that are in front of you.Um, you can't, you can't, only the jailer can exit the players from the prisoner's dilemma and the jailer has decided he likes, he likes the game and wants to play more rounds of it.

Indeed.As we wrap up, David, I want to revisit the rupture thesis as a framework for informing and guiding Canadian.policy.Uh, this is obviously has become the subject of contestation even in Canada.Uh, in the aftermath of the prime minister's comments, Pierre Polly of has made a kind of different bet that, uh, that the U .S.

will revert to some kind of normalcy, to say nothing of the fact that, you know, given our economic and security dependence on the U .S., we have no choice but to work out some kind of arrangement.You hear sometimes that because of effective polarization in the United States, that the Democrats, should they take the White House in 2028, will steer far in the opposite direction towards a kind of more global leading the United States.Just seven months later or so, how are you thinking about the rupture thesis as a kind of operating framework for Canadian policy?

Well, I think the most important data point here is to keep in mind that when Biden won the presidency in 2020 and thought that the Trump experience was a closed chapter and that we were now into a new era, he did not revive the Trans -Pacific Partnership, that he agreed with Trump that the era of trade agreements was over.In fact, Biden wasthe only president, Trump at least signed Kuzma, which is a trade agreement heading in the wrong direction, but still an agreement.Biden signed none.I think he's the only president since, gosh, probably since before the 1920s to have no trade agreements at all to his credit.And if there is more democratic control, it will be more statist, it will be more protectionist, and more concerned with factory employment, which seems like such an out -of -date concept in the age of AI, but that's where those Midwestern votes seem to hang, and so that's where they'll go.

So I think the idea of America's return, it will be less maybe malicious and corrupt, post -Trump than it is during Trump, but the idea that you've got, that it is ready to resume its historical position of leadership is one, I mean, I wish it would be true, I hope it's true, but I wouldn't bet much that it'd be true.And I think for the conservatives in particular, there is a danger, which is you start from the fact, the real fact, that many of your party's activists consume American social media content and are more Trumpy, both in content and in tone, than, the rest of their neighbors can abide.And so the leadership then says, it's our job to rationalize the non -rational preferences or wishes or affiliation of our supporters by coming up with some theory about the United States that is obviously false.but that allows us to gratify the social media driven wishes.You need to be clear eyed about this.I mean, a party cannot ignore the wishes of its members.

And if you've got a lot of Trumpy members, that's going to force some things on you.But don't let it shape your thinking.Understand when you're saying, I want to do something here that is suboptimal because my members are making me do it.and not pretend that it's optimal.The idea that you're gonna wish for Ronald Reagan back, even if Ronald Reagan comes back, the material basis for Ronald Reagan to come back isn't going to be there.And anyway, you have to work, after Trump, Biden, Trump, you have to work on the assumption that the next administration will look more like Maybe it looks less like Trump, but it will look more like Biden.

And that's not good from a Canadian point of view either.

David, I'm so glad to be back with you.I know it's been a busy couple of months for you and your family.Our thoughts are always with you.And I look forward to catching up again soon.

Bye bye.Thanks, Sean.