I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to the To the Contrary podcast. By the way, congratulations on making it through year one of Donald Trump's second coming. We only have three years to go. Okay, that was kind of depressing to start. So I want to talk about what's happening in the world right now because many of you may have seen the fact that the president went to Davos.

We'll talk about that at some later at some later day.

But on the way there, he posted a little bit of what I call Maga Troll porn for the rest of the

world.

You may have seen this image, an AI image of Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office

with a big map of the American flag covering the United States and Canada. And then all the leaders of

the EU are sitting around the desk looking like a bunch of chumps. Well, hilarity, of course, ensued because, of course, ha, ha, ha, that's just hilarious.

Except that Canada is not amused by this. And many of you may have heard about this, but the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, gave an absolutely extraordinary address at Davis.

And I honestly think that history may look back

on his speech as the moment when the West reached its breaking point. And here's just a little bit

of what the Canadian Prime Minister said. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades,

a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration.

But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons.

Tariffs is leverage.

Financial infrastructure is coercion.

Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration

when integration becomes the source of your subordination.

Now, you ought to read the whole thing because for someone like Mark Carney to use the word

rupture, not transition, is an indication of how the world is looking at us right now. So we have a lot to cover today.

And joining me on the podcast today is our good friend Peter Wainer. Peter, welcome back.

Great to be with you, Charlie. It's always a delight to have a conversation with you.

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