Davos is a messy circus

This year, Davos feels less like a forum for global leadership and more like a live exhibition of Western disorder and division.

Despite being mocked by Trump as a subordinate who "calls him dad", NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte argued that Trump's return to power was actually a good thing — because without American coercion, NATO allies would never raise defense spending. That is humiliation repackaged as "motivation".

And that is precisely why Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's speech stood out. Carney acknowledged the failure of the so-called rules-based international order — not as a slogan, but as a reality. He looks like the last adult still in control in a room full of noise, denial and deference.