Mark Carney Just Cracked the American Empire in Half as Canada Entertains Joining the EU
Canada’s Boring Banker Just Became The Most Dangerous Man To Trump, Putin, and Xi On Earth — And Europe Is Begging Us To Make It Official.
While Donald Trump was busy threatening Greenland, picking fights with Germany, pulling 5,000 troops out of a NATO ally, bombing Iran, and licking Putin’s boots on a Tuesday — our guy Mark Carney just rolled into Yerevan, Armenia, and became the first non-European leader in history to be invited inside the European Political Community summit.
Forty-eight heads of state. Twenty-seven EU nations. The UK. Ukraine. Norway. Iceland. Turkey. Albania. The whole goddamn continent in one room — and the guest of honour is the guy from the country Trump keeps calling “the 51st state.”
The symbolism is so loud it should come with hearing protection.
Who The Hell Is Mark Carney Again?
Quick refresher for the people in the back still wearing MAGA hats and complaining about gas prices.
Mark Carney is a Harvard and Oxford-educated economist who ran the Bank of Canada through the 2008 financial crisis without a scratch. Then the British poached him to run the Bank of England through Brexit — the first non-Brit to ever hold the job in its 300+ year history. Then he ran the UN’s climate finance file. Then he wrote a book. Then, when Canada needed an adult in the room because Trump had decided he was going to annex us, Carney walked into Liberal leadership, won, called an election, and won that too in April 2025 — fourth consecutive Liberal majority — running on one promise: cut the American cord.
He’s spent nearly 60 days outside the country since taking office. Not on vacation. Building a new world.
This isn’t a politician. This is a central banker with a passport, a thesis, and a vendetta against economic bullies.
And in January at Davos, he stood up in front of the global elite and said the quiet part out loud: the rules-based international order built on American hegemony has experienced “a rupture, not a transition.”
He got a standing ovation. At Davos. Where they don’t clap for anything.
Trump rescinded Canada’s invitation to his “Board of Peace” the next day and threatened 100% tariffs. Cool. Cool cool cool.
“Middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”
He wasn’t done. He quoted Thucydides. He quoted Václav Havel. He talked about how authoritarian systems sustain themselves “not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.”
You think he was talking about the Soviets? He was talking about us. About the West. About the people pretending Trump’s America is still the leader of the free world while it strips wires out of the alliance and sells them for scrap to Vladimir Putin.
Then in Yerevan yesterday, in front of every leader who matters in Europe, he said this:
We’re here because of the moral and security imperitives on our co-operation…It’s my strong personal view that the international world order will be built, but it will be rebuilt out of Europe…
That’s not diplomatic word salad. That’s a declaration. A new alliance. A new rules-based order that doesn’t run through Washington anymore. It runs through Brussels, Ottawa, London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Canberra, and Seoul.
And the United States isn’t invited.
How Did We Get Here? Carney’s Been Quietly Wiring The Bomb For A Year
This didn’t happen overnight. Carney has been laying charges under the foundation of American hegemony since the day he took office. Look at the receipts:
June 2025 — The 20th Canada-EU Summit in Brussels. Carney signed the New EU-Canada Strategic Partnership of the Future — a sweeping framework covering AI, cybersecurity, digital infrastructure, and critical minerals. Same trip, he signed the Canada-EU Security and Defence Partnership — the first time Canada has ever been wrapped into Europe’s security architecture as a single political unit.
We’re already economically married. The wedding ring is just paperwork.
Why Joining The EU Would Be A Nuclear Strike On American Hegemony
Let’s stop pretending this is theoretical. Let’s run the numbers.
The EU has 450 million people. Canada has 41 million. Add Canada and you’re at 491 million people. That’s bigger than the United States by 150 million people. Bigger than Russia by three times. Within shouting distance of the entire population of the European Union as it currently stands becoming the largest economic bloc on Earth.
Add the CPTPP — which Carney is already pushing to bridge with the EU into one 1.5-billion-person trading bloc (his words at Davos) — and you’re talking about a market so massive it makes the American consumer look like a corner store.
The Arctic. Canada controls the second-largest piece of Arctic coastline on the planet. The EU is desperate for a northern flank against Russia. Putin’s been militarizing the Arctic for a decade while Trump tries to buy Greenland. Canada in the EU means the EU’s northern border runs from the Beaufort Sea to Baffin Bay. Putin loses his Arctic playground overnight.
Critical minerals. Carney’s been pitching Canada at every summit as the world’s clean alternative to Chinese-controlled supply chains. Lithium. Cobalt. Nickel. Rare earths. Uranium. The EU needs them. China owns them. Canada has them. Do the math.
Defence industrial base. Canada’s already inside SAFE. Canadian shipyards, aerospace, AI defence companies, Arctic surveillance — all now plugged directly into the EU’s $800 billion defence rearmament push. Trump just handed Europe the keys to a continent-wide war machine that doesn’t include American suppliers.
The kill shot: Canada in the EU — even as a “deep partnership” short of full membership — means the United States is no longer the indispensable nation. It’s just a nation. A big, loud, increasingly unstable nation that picked a fight with its northern neighbour and lost it.
That’s not a tariff problem. That’s the end of an empire.
How This Kneecaps Putin
Here’s the part Putin doesn’t want you reading.
Vladimir Putin’s entire foreign policy thesis since 2008 has been the same thing: break the EU apart, peel off Eastern Europe, splinter NATO, exhaust the West, and run out the clock until America retreats into isolationism.
He was winning. Trump pulled out of Iran. Trump pulled troops out of Germany. Trump sided with Putin against Zelensky. Trump threatened Greenland — a NATO member — which forced Denmark and the entire Nordic-Baltic gate to stop trusting America. Trump’s tariffs on Europe have pushed Merkel’s successor, Merz, into open conflict with Washington. Putin was watching the Western alliance crumble in real time and licking his chops.
Then Carney shows up in Yerevan.
In Armenia.
Of all the places. Armenia. A country that’s been Russia’s vassal state for 200 years and is now openly applying for EU membership. A country whose own PM is trying to detach from the Kremlin without getting his nose broken. The EU just established a counter-disinformation mission in Armenia in April because Russia is running interference ops ahead of the June elections.
And the EU rolled out the red carpet for the Canadian PM in Yerevan.
In Putin’s backyard.
Putin’s response? He claimed he was “completely calm” about Armenia’s overtures to Europe. Sure, Vlad. You’re calm. You’re so calm, you’re flooding the zone with disinformation, blocking peacekeepers from doing their jobs in Karabakh, and watching your sphere of influence walk out the door holding hands with the guy from Edmonton.
A Canada-EU axis is Putin’s worst nightmare made flesh:
- It re-anchors the Atlantic alliance without America.
- It makes Ukraine’s accession to the EU inevitable.
- It pulls Armenia, Moldova, Georgia and the Western Balkans deeper into the Western orbit.
- It builds an Arctic-to-Black-Sea security architecture that Russia cannot break.
- And it does it all using Trump’s own tariffs as the propellant.
Putin spent 25 years trying to break the EU. Carney is about to expand it.
And Now Xi
China’s been playing the long game. Belt and Road. Buying African mines. Cornering rare earths. Cultivating BRICS as the alternative to the dollar-dominated order. The whole strategy depends on one assumption: the West is divided and shrinking.
A Canada-EU mega-bloc with the CPTPP attached is the West uniting and growing.
Carney specifically said at Davos he’s building “buyers’ clubs anchored in the G7” so the world can diversify away from concentrated supply — read: away from China. He said Canada is cooperating with “like-minded democracies” on AI, so we won’t be forced to choose between “hegemons and hyperscalers” — read: between Beijing and a Trump-aligned Silicon Valley.
This is de-risking on steroids. It’s the rules-based order rebuilt without the two superpowers actively trying to wreck it.
Xi sees this clearly. That’s why China keeps trying to join CPTPP. They know which way the wind’s blowing. They want a seat at the table Carney is building. He’s not letting them in.
The Trump-Putin-Xi axis was supposed to be the new world. Three strongmen carving up the planet into spheres of influence. Strongmen don’t like rules. Strongmen don’t like alliances they can’t dominate. Strongmen don’t like middle powers ganging up.
Carney just ganged us up.
“Anti-Putin Club” Becomes “Anti-Trump Club”
Here’s the line that should be on the cover of every newspaper:
Sebastien Maillard at the Jacques Delors Institute said the European Political Community “was initially perceived as an anti-Putin club” but with Carney’s invitation, “this initiative — which was initially driven by geography — is now taking on an anti-Trump slant.”
European officials are saying the quiet part out loud now. They invited Carney specifically because Trump can’t be trusted. They’re building a parallel security and economic architecture in real time. They’re doing it with our Prime Minister sitting at the head of the table.
António Costa, President of the European Council, opened the summit with this:
“Europe and Canada are more than just like-minded partners — together we are building a global alliance to defend peace, shared prosperity and multilateralism.”
That’s not partnership language. That’s founding charter language.
The Best Carney Quotes From This Run
For posterity. For the highlight reel. For the historians who will one day write about how Canada’s boring banker dismantled the American century with a calculator and a calm voice:
“As the most European of the non-European countries, Canada looks first to the European Union to build a better world.” — Carney, Brussels, June 2025
“If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” — Davos, January 2026
The rules-based world order has experienced “a rupture, not a transition.” — Davos
Great powers “have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.” — Davos
“In a more dangerous and divided world, Canada is moving ever closer to our European partners and allies. Bound by our shared values, we are advancing cooperation in defence, energy, and technology to build a more secure and prosperous future on both sides of the Atlantic.” — April 2026
“We’re the most European of non-European countries, so there’s many ways that we can work together.” — Yerevan, May 3, 2026
“We don’t think that we’re destined to submit to a more transactional, insular and brutal world — and gatherings such as these point to a better way forward.” — Yerevan, closing remarks
That’s not a Prime Minister talking. That’s a founder.
Should Canada Actually Join?
Carney himself has publicly said no — Canada wants closer partnership, not membership. Fine. The technical accession process would take a decade and force us to renegotiate everything from immigration to Quebec’s language laws. The skeptics aren’t wrong about the mechanics.
But here’s what the polls show: 57% of Canadians now support joining the EU, per Nanos. Another Spark Advocacy survey found 84% want stronger ties at minimum and only a small minority think it’s a bad idea.
And here’s what experts like Augusto Lopez-Claros are saying out loud: “Canada is already operating as if it were a member of the European Union — except for the fact that it doesn’t happen to be located in Europe.”
The traditional logic of EU membership was geography. That logic is dead. The new logic is values, institutional quality, regulatory alignment, and shared adversaries. On every one of those metrics, Canada outperforms half the current EU members.
So here’s my take and you can take it or leave it:
We don’t need a membership card. We need the practical equivalent of one. Free movement of capital and skilled labour. Mutual defence guarantees. Regulatory alignment. A common digital and AI framework. Critical mineral supply chains. Joint Arctic security. A bridge between CPTPP and the EU single market.
Carney is building all of it. Right now. Without firing a single shot, raising a single tariff, or insulting a single ally.
He’s not asking permission. He’s not asking Washington. He’s not waiting for Trump to come to his senses, because Trump doesn’t have any to come to.
He’s just building it. Brick by brick. Summit by summit. Treaty by treaty.
And every time Trump throws another tantrum, every time Putin escalates, every time Xi tries to peel off another country — the bricks come faster.
The Bottom Line
Trump thinks he’s making America great again. He’s making Europe great again. And he’s making Canada indispensable to it.
Putin thinks he’s breaking the West. He’s welding it.
Xi thinks the world is moving to a multipolar order with Beijing at one of the poles. The new pole isn’t Beijing. It’s Brussels-Ottawa-London-Tokyo-Canberra, and it’s anchored in democracy, rule of law, and a calm Canadian banker who refuses to flinch.
The Trump-Putin-Xi axis dreamed of a world carved into three empires.
Mark Carney just showed up in Armenia, smiled politely, and put a fourth bloc on the map — bigger, richer, more democratic, and more cohesive than any of them.
And here’s the part that should keep all three of those guys awake at night:
It’s already real.
The deals are signed. The defence partnership is live. Canada is inside SAFE. The European Parliament is asking for more. The polls are flipping. The summits are happening. The next EPC is in Ireland in November and you can bet Carney’s RSVP is already in.
The empire dreams of Trump, Putin, and Xi don’t end with a bang. They end with a tired Canadian economist in a navy suit, in a former Soviet republic, telling forty-eight heads of state that we don’t have to live in the world the strongmen built.
We can build a better one.
We’ve already started.
https://deanblundell.substack.com/p/breaking-mark-carney-just-walked