Mark Carney was a middle-power prodigy in a tough spot at G7

EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — It was his first real outing since the coronation. Mark Carney, who was anointed in January as prince of the world’s middle powers, gathered on the sparkling shores of Lac Léman along with the geopolitical who’s who. On one side of the Canadian prime minister were the European leaders who see Carney as a kindred spirit, an ally on trade, on defence, and a source of stability in rough-and-tumble North America. On the other was U.S. President Donald Trump, whom Carney, just a few months ago, dubbed “a hegemon.” That archaic title has stuck since Carney returned it to common usage with his World Economic Forum speech in Davos, Switzerland. But Carney himself has shifted. When he seized the world’s attention back in January, it was part of a calculated attempt to strike out and stand out on a suddenly directionless world stage. Then, the world and its economy were quaking under the weight of American tariffs and trade threats. Fellow leaders looked upon the Canadian prime minister’s call to forge a new path out from under the shadows of Washington and Beijing as the words of a prophet and potential saviour. It was reminiscent of the tariff-threatened Canadian electorate who placed their confidence in Carney over Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre in the last federal election when Trump was eyeing Canada as a 51st state. Carney’s global stardom hasn’t faded since. He received a hero’s welcome in Paris last week from French President Emmanuel Macron, who said Canada under Carney is “a country that is, politically and geostrategically, deeply aligned with Europe.” But while Carney’s star still shines bright, his twinkle has changed, if ever so subtly. Here at the G7 summit in Evian, Carney made every effort not to stand out against Trump but to stand shoulder to shoulder with an American ally, even while the Canada-U.S. relationship is strained by tariffs and trade irritants. The prime minister didn’t get a one-on-one meeting with the American president at this three-day meeting to discuss the prime matter of mutual interest: the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade deal which has a July 1 deadline for renewal. That turned Carney into a leader on the hunt for face time. On Wednesday morning, in the minutes ahead of a leaders’ session titled “Reviving a balanced, shared and sustainable economic growth for all,” Carney was seen chatting with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Kenyan President William Ruto and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung. But always, he kept a permanent and watchful eye on the arrivals door — a patient prime minister waiting for his opening. There were a few shared words and a laugh with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who attended the session. There was no trace of bad blood or lingering resentment between the two deep-pocketed veterans of the world of finance. Not over the unresolved Canada-U.S. trade irritants. Not over Bessent’s tut-tutting earlier this year that Carney was not “doing the best job for Canadian people” by signing a trade deal that allowed Chinese electric vehicles to be sold in Canada. With everyone else present, the real target of Carney’s lurking and lingering on the summit sidelines could only have been Trump. The American president arrived late to the Wednesday morning session, worked his way around the long, oval-shaped meeting table, stopped in front of his fellow leaders and declared: “I’m the boss.” Carney was in his assigned seat by that point, to the left of Macron, with Trump seated at the French president’s right-hand side. But Carney seemed pleased nonetheless with his overall G7 access to the American leader. “I had seven or eight discussions with President Trump over the course of the last 36 hours,” Carney told reporters Wednesday. The topics, he said, ranged from the war in Ukraine, to the world economy to Trump’s 80th birthday to “our commercial relations.” One of those discussions on Tuesday, picked up by a live microphone, caught Carney defending Canada’s Chinese EV deal, which allows 49,000 cars to be sold in the country under what the prime minister said was “a hard cap.” “I thought you’d actually like that,” he told Trump, who indeed voiced his pleasure. It was proof, perhaps, that Carney has not strayed so far from the golden rule of U.S. relations under Trump: flattery gets you everywhere. But there has been a change. In Davos, Carney’s message was that middle powers need not be beholden to the worst impulses of “the boss.” But in Evian, Carney made every effort to be useful and to make Trump the hegemon, look his best. Trump signed an interim peace deal with Iran just ahead of his arrival at the G7 summit and spent much of his time here defending the agreement from critics who accused him of striking a bad deal. And when Carney appeared Tuesday night in an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins it was not to make Canada’s case for the renewal of a free-trade agreement. Carney used the occasion to praise Trump’s Iran deal as a “game changer.” “The president helped create that deal,” he said. “The rest of the G7 and the broader community needs to help implement it.” He added: “Having the deal and then getting behind it, that’s what’s crucial.” Canada already has concrete plans to prove itself a helpful ally to Trump. Over the longer term, there are plans to diversify energy transport routes to avoid another scenario by which oil shipments are held hostage in the Strait of Hormuz. In the meantime, Carney said Canada is willing — eager, even — to increase oil and natural gas shipments to Europe and Asia. And willing, also, to help keep the peace in the region. He mentioned in the CNN interview Canada might be able to oversee the process of Iranian financial assets being unfrozen as they come into compliance with the certain measures that are part of the deal. But he’s also taking something from the experience, saying that the world needs to draw lessons from the U.S.-Iran war and the resulting energy crisis. “One of the big lessons here is don’t be held hostage to one choke point in the global economy, whether that’s for oil, whether that’s for gas, whether it’s for critical minerals, whether it’s for a large language model, cyber capability, all things we’re discussing here,” he said. “In some of these cases, we can really help in — in lessening that.” Carney might defend his G7 alignment with Trump as an example of his Davos doctrine in action — a coming together with Trump over the common interest in dealing with threats from Iran or the need to support Ukraine against Russia. But in trying to cosy up to a punitive U.S. president who (on matters of trade, at least) claims his country needs nothing of what Canada has to offer, Carney risks ending up somewhere between a hegemon and a hard place — a middle-power prodigy in a tight political spot.