This year, our President, Donald Trump, decided to go to Davos, Switzerland for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

While there he gave his usual, off-the-cuff grievance speech about how Europe and most of the rest of the world was falling behind, and how, under his leadership, America was the best of all nations and was charging ahead.

There were some lines in his speech that people laughed at, but, in general, President Trump gave his usual meandering political stump speech, the kind that he typically performs at the rallies he has for his base in this country.

Despite his being, as our President, the featured speaker, the speech at Davos that everyone is still talking about was not his but was the one made by Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada. It was a well-crafted, articulate analysis by the Prime Minister as to where the world order was going under Trump’s leadership.

Perhaps, the nub of that speech came when Carney warned that the United States was now leading the world not into a “transition” to a new international system of governance but to a “rupture” in what we have come to know since World War II as a system defined by the rule of law.

Carney’s speech was not one of grievance, but one of stating the reality of what has been going on since Trump became President in 2025. The President of the United States has not only thrown Canada “under the bus,” he has openly criticized most of America’s former allies in one way or another.

Noteworthy in Mr. Carney’s speech was that he didn’t stop at just describing the situation as he sees it, he offered a new approach–that it was time for the “middle powers” in the world, like Canada, to seek new alliances between themselves to insure that democracy and the rule of law continue as the basis for international diplomacy.

The existing established order, which came out of World War II and was led by the United States, created international institutions and alliances to keep the peace. That order is now being shredded, and the world can no longer count on the United States as it has in the past. Canada and other democracies are adapting to this new reality.

As an American, though I appreciated the brilliance and truthfulness of the Prime Minister’s speech–it was a sad day. The Trump administration’s “go-it-alone” foreign policy now being applied with an arrogance that we have never seen–has marginalized the United States on the world stage.

The Prime Minister of Canada spoke truth to power. We are forcing our former allies to find new ways to keep the peace in order to preserve democracy in the world–what could be more tragic? Our “go it alone,” America first (and only, it seems) strategy is destroying the credibility of the United States of America.

Rolland Kidder is a Stow resident.