THE seeds of a new international economic alliance have been sown, and the United States is not part of it.
The US, in fact, is the reason such an alliance is taking shape.
Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made strong overtures to Canada to join the European Union as an “associate member.”
Von der Leyen said a “fracture in the international rules-based system” threatens democracies today. To thwart this threat, the EU and Canada must push their relationship “to the highest level possible.”
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has warmed up to the invitation. “Canada and Europe are each strong,” Carney said. “Europe and Canada are stronger together.”
Von der Leyen made it clear that an EU-Canada partnership is “not against anyone else, but for our common strength.” It’s difficult, however, to believe that the US was not a factor in prompting the partnership.
Ottawa is in the midst of a tariff war with Washington, and President Donald Trump has alienated the US’ European allies by aggressively pushing protectionist trade policies, ridiculing their leaders, and undermining NATO.
Von der Leyen doesn’t need to mention the US directly, but the subtext is hard to ignore.
Carney, on the other hand, envisions Canada and EU morphing into a “middle power” that is “strong enough so that no one can dictate our choices.”
“I’m not proposing a third bloc in order to become a great power rival, only with better manners,” he said with a subtle hint of humor.
Carney’s statement is already being hailed as a historic moment. British political analyst Alastair Campbell wrote: “A new world order really is being shaped, and it is not what Trump’s USA imagines.”
Trump has belittled Carney’s vision as “laughable.” “If it’s a good intention, that’s fine. If it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe,” he said.
The Arctic is one key interest Canada and EU share. The vast region, made up of Canada, the US, Russia, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark, is becoming a geopolitical hotspot after the retreat of the ice sheets due to climate change exposed economic prospects, including shipping, fishing and mining.
Control of the Arctic could become strategic as a middle-power bloc emerges.
A shift in the power balance will definitely impact the Philippines. Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, Carney said Canada is pivoting toward global diversification through “variable geometry” — creating different coalitions for different economic and security issues.
To this end, Canada has signed 12 trade and security agreements with several countries, including the Philippines.
In July, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. traveled to Vancouver to sign with Carney the Canadian-Philippine Strategic Partnership, which strengthens cooperation in trade, energy, defense and tourism between the two countries.
There are concerns that by gravitating toward the middle-power ambit, the Philippines could strain its security ties with its longstanding ally, the US. US Defense Undersecretary Elbridge Colby has derided the middle-powers concept as a “delusion” and “superficial.”
The more practical view, as far as the Philippines is concerned, is that Canada’s stance gives Manila the advantage of expanding its deterrence net.
“The value of these agreements lies in their practical effects,” noted Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of Research and Strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. “They improve interoperability, widen Manila’s security relationships and demonstrate that Canada can contribute useful capabilities in maritime domain awareness, cyber resilience, training and logistics.”
Aligning with a bloc that includes middle powers in the Indo-Pacific like Japan, South Korea and Australia will provide the Philippines linkage with countries that have a bigger stake in the region because they are part of it.
Nadjibulla said the middle-powers strategy “rests on a persuasive proposition: Canada can strengthen its sovereignty and economic resilience by building overlapping coalitions with countries that share specific interests, even when they do not align on everything.”
For Carney, the old order is gone, and it “is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just.”
