Donald Trump threatened Canada’s Mark Carney during his rambling Davos speech on Wednesday (21 January), where he claimed that the nation “only lives because of the United States”. During his address at the World Economic Forum, the US president said that Ottawa should be “grateful” to Washington for all the “freebies” it receives. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements,” he said. It comes after Mr Carney warned that the old world order was in the “midst of a rupture” and was “not coming back,” during his own speech in Switzerland on Tuesday (20 January).
It’s basically a test. If you try to appease him as the Europeans do then he just keeps taking chunks out of you, and if you hold firm then he goes looking for a weaker target. Notice there’s not much talk of any trade war with China anymore. China told the US how it’s gonna be and Trump backed off.