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The Ezra Klein Show

The Most Important Foreign Policy Speech in Years

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

News, Government, Society & Culture

4.314.5K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2026

⏱️ 75 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada announced last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It was one of the most significant foreign policy speeches in years, sending shockwaves through the international community. He was describing a dynamic that’s been building for decades — what the scholars Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman call “weaponized interdependence” — that has now reached a tipping point. I asked Farrell on the show to explain this dynamic, why this is a “rupture” moment and how other countries are responding. He is an international-affairs professor at Johns Hopkins University, is an author of the book “Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy” and writes an excellent Substack, Programmable Mutter. Note: This episode touches on the clashes over immigration enforcement in Minneapolis and the killing of Renee Good, but it was recorded on Friday, before the killing of Alex Pretti. Mentioned: “Davos 2026: Special address by Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada” Underground Empire by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman “Programmable Mutter” by Henry Farrell “The nature and sources of liberal international order” by Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry “The Enshittification of American Power” by Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman “Too big to care” by Cory Doctorow Weapons of the Weak by James C. Scott Private Truths, Public Lies by Timur Kuran “Further Back to the Future: Neo-Royalism, the Trump Administration, and the Emerging International System” by Stacie E. Goddard and Abraham Newman “The Dynamics of Informational Cascades: The Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany, 1989–91” by Susanne Lohmann Book Recommendations: Dollars and Dominion by Mary Bridges Nonesuch by Francis Spufford The Score by C. Thi Nguyen Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker, Kate Sinclair Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Transcript

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0:00.0

The

0:07.0

The At Davos last week, Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, gave a speech that sent shockwaves through the international community.

0:42.3

Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.

0:47.3

Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumptions that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity

0:55.0

and security, that assumption is no longer valid.

0:59.0

We know the old order is not coming back.

1:03.0

We shouldn't mourn it.

1:05.0

Nostalgia is not a strategy.

1:08.0

But we believe that from the fracture we can build something bigger, better, stronger,

1:13.2

more just. To understand why this speech has been such an international relations earthquake,

1:21.0

I think you need to understand something about him. Karnie is as establishment as you get. He is a

1:26.4

technocrat's technocrat, former governor of the Bank of Canada, former governor of the Bank of England.

1:33.2

For Carney, this kind of figure to come out at Davos in front of all those assembled government elites and business elites at this moment when Trump is threatening tariffs on Europe

1:46.1

in order to take over Greenland.

1:48.3

For him to come out and say

1:49.2

that we are living in a rupture,

1:52.1

that the old order in which

1:54.7

you could have values-based relationships

1:57.7

with the United States of America is over.

2:00.4

For Carney, the leader of Canada, America's both geographically and in many ways spiritually

2:06.6

closest ally to say this, that is a break point.

2:10.8

I think that's a moment a week that's going to be remembered for a long time.

...

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