In his own words with John Webster

The USA frequently invokes the “rules-based international order” to justify its actions. But what really is it?

At the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made an astonishing admission;

“We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”

The post-war “rules-based order” was built around institutions such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and, later, the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Its language was about international cooperation, equality and shared prosperity.

The unfair reality was different. The IMF and World Bank gave disproportionate voting power to wealthy countries, particularly the United States. The dollar’s position as the world’s principal reserve currency gave America enormous financial leverage.

The WTO presented itself as a system of free and equal trade, yet powerful countries exerted disproportionate influence over the rules. As a condition of IMF assistance, countries were pressured into “structural adjustment” programmes involving privatisation, market liberalisation and cuts in public spending. These policies opened economies to international capital which often came at the cost of investment, public services, living standards and national sovereignty.

The ‘neoliberal’ system was unequal but worked for the dominant western economies.

Then came Trump.

Trump did not create the contradictions. He simply exposed the reality.

He imposed tariffs, launched a trade war with China and paralysed the WTO’s dispute-settlement system by blocking appointments to its Appellate Body. Recently he has gone further. ‘Liberal globalisation’ has increasingly been replaced by protectionism, economic coercion and an open assertion of American power with the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by US forces and subsequent unprovoked military action against Iran and threats to ‘annex’ Canada and Greenland.

Trump did not destroy the rules-based order. He exposed it and forced Carney’s confession.

Carney argues that the old order was never quite what it claimed to be. The powerful made the rules, broke them when necessary and used economic integration as leverage. For countries such as Canada, the arrangement was useful because it once suited them. That bargain has now broken down.

Carney describes a world of intensifying great-power rivalry in which economic integration itself can become a weapon.

So perhaps the real question is not whether the rules-based order is breaking down.

It’s whose rules were they in the first place?

For decades, economic and military power determined whose interests carried the greatest weight. Now the rise of China and other emerging powers, including the BRICS countries, is challenging that dominance. We see increased conflict and wars.

The old order is being contested—not simply because its rules have been challenged, but because the balance of power that created those rules is changing.

As Gramsci famously put it:

“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”