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mark carney
From Gaza to Cuba, Canada Remains the World’s Most Tactful Bystander
Ottawa has expressed concern, called for deescalation, and urged all parties to respect international law, but it has avoided naming responsibility and evaded confronting its closest ally.
Feb 16, 2026
The world is witnessing yet another manufactured humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in plain sight in Cuba. This crisis is not the result of any internal collapse or mismanagement. It is the deliberate outcome of United States policy, a policy of collective punishment designed to impose economic suffocation on an entire population to extract political change. President Donald Trump has openly declared his intention to overthrow the Cuban government by year’s end, meaning Washington is transforming its decades-old blockade into a full-scale siege. The Trump administration has absurdly designated the small, peaceful Caribbean nation as “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States, weaponizing tariffs and economic coercion against any country that dares to sell oil to Cuba.
The consequences are immediate and impossible to ignore. Cuban authorities have announced that jet fuel will be unavailable at airports across the country starting this week, disrupting airport operations and grounding both domestic and international carriers. Canadian airlines have already announced contingency plans for flights to and from Cuba, assessing reroutes, suspensions, and assistance for stranded travelers. But aviation is only the most visible edge of a far deeper collapse. If Cuba’s energy infrastructure fails, people will die. This is not a metaphor. It is inevitable. Without electricity, food cannot be grown, preserved, or transported. Medicines cannot be produced, refrigerated, or administered. Hospitals cannot operate. Ambulances, incubators, and ventilators will stop.
This deprivation is not at all incidental. It is intentional. Administration officials and the extreme right Cuban American political establishment have been explicit: The goal is to inflict suffering, to manufacture hunger, medicine shortages, and nationwide blackouts as instruments of regime change. Washington’s intentions could not be clearer. The United States is attempting to strangle an entire nation into submission.
While the US pursues this deliberate campaign of suffering, Ottawa has once again chosen the path of procedural dithering, offering words instead of action. Canada’s response, to no one’s surprise, has been another Kafkaesque exercise in bureaucratic evasion. When Senator Yuen Pau Woo asked officials from the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade what Canada is doing to prevent this potentially catastrophic humanitarian disaster in Cuba, the exchange exposed more absence than action. Pressed for specifics, the response was: “There are no specifics.” The officials further conceded that “there is no humanitarian response plan for Cuba that I’m aware of,” explaining that Canada’s engagement has been framed as “more looking at the development context and not the humanitarian context.”
Canada is not responsible for US actions. But it is responsible for its response to them.
In practice, this distinction functions as a delay mechanism. The government is “looking into the matter,” as it so often does, deferring urgency behind the process while conditions deteriorate. The latency appears less accidental than structural. And, as usual, no timeline has been offered, no indication of when this period of observation will end, or when statements will give way to action.
This pattern is not all new, nor is it confined to Cuba. It is, in fact, a continuation of a long record of calibrated restraint and strategic silence. Canada’s response over the past few years has been consistent, predictable, and deeply inadequate. By now, Canada has perfected the art of tactful bystanding, present in language, absent in consequence. Ottawa has expressed concern, called for deescalation, and urged all parties to respect international law, but it has avoided naming responsibility and evaded confronting its closest ally. Canada criticizes outcomes while refusing to challenge the very system that produces them. This is simply appeasement dressed up as diplomacy. While statements are issued, the systems that produce these horrors remain untouched, leaving ordinary people, Palestinians, Venezuelans, Iranians, and now Cubans, to bear the consequences.
For the past two years, the United States has funded and enabled genocide in Gaza, where tens of thousands of civilians have been killed with US weapons, under US protection, with full knowledge that no meaningful consequences will follow. A recent Al Jazeera investigation revealed that US-supplied thermal and thermobaric munitions, burning at 3,500°CC, effectively evaporated nearly 3,000 Palestinians, leaving no trace of their bodies, a stark illustration of unchecked barbarism. And as we speak, Israeli authorities are reportedly preparing to execute Palestinian prisoners under mandatory death penalties in military courts for vaguely defined “terrorism” offenses, laws applied only to Palestinians. And yet Canada, despite claiming to have imposed an arms embargo, continues to supply ammunition and weapons parts that fuel this violence. Canadian factories produce fighter jet components, explosives, and munitions that flow through US channels directly into the assault, sustaining the machinery of death while Ottawa issues carefully worded statements of concern.
This silence is not confined to Gaza. After the United States launched strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, Ottawa responded with bland calls for calm and diplomacy. Still, it deliberately refrained from directly condemning Washington’s military action, instead echoing cautious G7 language about negotiation without even naming the US role in the escalation.
And when the US carried out large‑scale strikes in Venezuela and captured its president, Canada’s official statement did not even bother to mention the United States. And, instead offered abstract calls for all parties to “uphold international law” while leaving Washington’s unilateral intervention unchallenged.
In each case, Ottawa paid lip service to restraint while leaving raw power untouched, exposing how Ottawa’s posture has consistently privileged diplomatic caution over moral accountability.
Although recently, it did seem that Canada’s posture might be shifting, tellingly, not because of mass civilian deaths abroad. The change came only when US military adventurism edged closer to home. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s warnings about a collapsing rules-based international order only came after the US threatened Greenland, a territory tied to NATO allies and Arctic stability. Only then did Canada speak clearly about sovereignty, coercion, and the dangers of unchecked power. The timing is telling. It suggests Canada perceives the risks of impunity only when they threaten Western interests or its own proximity, while the devastation inflicted on others remains effectively invisible.
Even then, the response has remained largely rhetorical.
When Canada’s response to ICE’s documented brutalities of its own citizens is so plainly inadequate, it comes as no surprise that its response to US aggression abroad is equally hollow and insufficient.
And now, as the humanitarian catastrophe looms in Cuba, Canada appears to be relying on verbal gymnastics to maintain political correctness while avoiding meaningful action. Even though, on paper, Ottawa opposes US sanctions and the blockade, in practice, it offers no condemnation, no advocacy, and no protection for ordinary Cubans facing hunger, blackouts, and collapsing hospitals. Suffice it to say, Canada has by now perfected the role of silent bystander to nearly an art form.
Today, the mechanisms that enable atrocity, impunity, exceptionalism, and allied silence are on full display and fully operational, and Cuba is simply the latest victim. To call the United States’ behavior “outside the spirit of international law” would be a grotesque understatement. Washington treats international law as optional, shielding mass civilian slaughter through diplomatic vetoes, launching unilateral strikes with impunity, and sustaining devastation through overwhelming military support.
Canada is not responsible for US actions. But it is responsible for its response to them. Ottawa has deliberately hidden behind bureaucratic loopholes while allowing Canadian-made weapons components and ammunition to move through US supply chains and into Israel, insulating itself from accountability while profiting from the machinery of war. Carney’s government has offered no clear or urgent plan on Bill C-233, legislation intended to curb Canadian arms exports where there is a risk of war crimes. The bill continues to hang in limbo, while Canada remains embedded in US military supply chains. Canadian-made F-35 components and ammunition continue to flow to the United States, where end-use accountability effectively disappears. Simultaneously, Canada continues to export armoured vehicles and security equipment to US agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an institution that has detained Canadian citizens without explanation, due process, or urgency.
When Canada’s response to ICE’s documented brutalities of its own citizens is so plainly inadequate, it comes as no surprise that its response to US aggression abroad is equally hollow and insufficient. None of the people affected by the US aggression—Palestinians, Iranians, Venezuelans, Cubans, or others subjected to unilateral force—believe that Canada is in their corner in any meaningful way. None. Canada’s response serves no protective function at all. It is a calculated performance of concern, engineered to evade moral obligation without disrupting US power.
If Canada genuinely wants to make a difference, it can start with something simple and immediate: Sell essential goods to Cuba, food, fuel, and medicine. Not statements. Not carefully worded press releases. Tangible relief that keeps lights on, shelves stocked, and patients alive. Yet, as so often before, Ottawa may retreat behind another polished, empty statement while taking no meaningful action.
Ottawa’s approach is built on a reckless assumption that Trump’s chaos is governed by strategy, that US volatility is calculable, and that Canada will somehow remain exempt. That illusion has already collapsed. The same contempt for international law has now extended to Greenland, with explicit annexation threats aimed at allies. If Canada continues to hedge, appease, and delay rather than act on principle, it should not expect any support when its own sovereignty is challenged. Silence does not buy safety. It only invites escalation. If Canada does not adjust its course, it may find that when threats strike closer to home, there will be no one left willing to stand alongside it.
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Canada Has Concluded That Binding Itself to the US Isn't Safe; Here's Why That Matters
For those in Washington who assume the old alliances will endure regardless of how allies are treated, Canada's actions show the old order really is not coming back.
Feb 03, 2026
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum on January 20 was not an exercise in pique. It was the clearest articulation yet of a strategic shift that has profound implications—not just for US-Canada relations, but for the entire structure of American alliances worldwide.
Carney told the Davos audience that “the old order is not coming back” and that the rules-based international system was always “partially false.” The strongest exempted themselves when convenient, trade rules were enforced asymmetrically, and Canada “placed the sign in the window” while avoiding the gaps between rhetoric and reality. That bargain, he declared, no longer works. Canada is now building what Carney called “strategic autonomy”—the capacity to feed itself, fuel itself, and defend itself without depending on the United States.
The speech codified what six months of frenetic diplomacy had already demonstrated. Since taking office, Carney has signed 12 trade and security agreements across four continents. Canada has joined the European Union’s €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defense procurement program; the first non-European nation admitted. Recently, Carney announced a strategic partnership with Xi Jinping and opened Canadian markets to Chinese electric vehicles. Ottawa has committed to the largest military spending increase since World War II, deliberately structured to reduce reliance on American defense contractors.
This matters beyond North America because Canada was, until recently, the test case for deep integration with the United States. More than 75% of Canadian exports went south. Supply chains, especially in automotive and energy, were seamlessly continental. Defense was jointly managed through NORAD. If any country had conclusively answered the question of whether binding one’s self to American hegemony was safe, it was Canada.
When allies begin describing authoritarian rivals as more reliable than the United States, something fundamental has broken.
The answer, Ottawa has now concluded, is no. And that conclusion is being watched carefully in Brussels, Tokyo, Canberra, and Seoul.
The proximate cause is the Trump administration’s tariffs, threats to abandon the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and repeated suggestions that Canada should become the 51st US state. But Carney’s Davos speech made clear that the problem runs deeper than one administration. The issue is structural: American policy now swings so dramatically between presidencies that commitments made by one administration cannot be trusted to survive the next. For allies making decade-long investments in defense procurement, energy infrastructure, or trade relationships, this volatility is intolerable.
Carney borrowed a framework from Finnish President Alexander Stubb: “values-based realism.” Canada will remain committed to sovereignty, human rights, and international law in principle. However, Canada will be pragmatic about working with partners who do not share those values. This explains the China pivot. Beijing is not a trustworthy partner, and Canadians know this better than most after the arbitrary detention of the two Michaels—Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig—in 2018 (and released in 2021). But China is predictable in ways that Washington no longer is. As Carney noted in Beijing, the relationship with China is now “more predictable” than the one with the United States.
That statement should alarm policymakers in Washington far more than any tariff retaliation. When allies begin describing authoritarian rivals as more reliable than the United States, something fundamental has broken.
The Canadian pivot also reveals the limits of geographical determinism. American analysts have long assumed that Canada has no real alternatives; that proximity and integration lock Ottawa into the US orbit regardless of policy. Carney is testing that assumption. The Trans Mountain pipeline now ships Canadian oil to Asia. Liquefied natural gas terminals are under construction for Pacific exports. The EU defense partnership opens European procurement to Canadian manufacturers.
Canada cannot replace American trade overnight, but it can build sufficient alternatives to survive without it. That is precisely what Carney has pledged: doubling non-US exports within 10 years.
For other US allies, the lesson is clear. If Canada, the most integrated, most proximate, most culturally similar American ally, has concluded that dependence on Washington is too risky, then no alliance is safe from reassessment. The Europeans are already drawing similar conclusions. The EU’s Mercosur deal and accelerated talks with Japan and South Korea reflect the same diversification logic. Even Australia, historically the most reliable US partner in the Indo-Pacific, is quietly exploring options.
None of this necessarily serves those allies’ long-term interests. China is not a benign alternative to American hegemony. The middle-power coalitions Carney envisions may lack the capacity to provide genuine security. And the economic costs of unwinding continental integration will be substantial. Canada’s gamble may yet prove to be a mistake.
But that is not the point. America’s closest ally has made a rational decision, based on observed evidence, that the United States can no longer be trusted, and is acting accordingly. Other allies are making similar calculations. The network of relationships that has amplified American power since 1945 is fraying, and American policy is what’s fraying it.
Carney closed his Davos speech with a line that deserves attention beyond Ottawa: “Nostalgia is not a strategy.” For those in Washington who assume the old alliances will endure regardless of how allies are treated, the warning applies with equal force. The old order really is not coming back. The question is what replaces it, and whether the United States will have any role in building it.
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Trump to Hike US Prices Because 'Canada Hurt His Feelings' With Reagan Tariffs Ad
"He's increasing taxes on Americans by executive fiat because he didn't like an advertisement that quoted Reagan's (accurate) views on tariffs," said one US journalist. "You (and I) are paying these taxes—not Canada."
Oct 26, 2025
Critics across North America are blasting President Donald Trump's additional 10% import tax on Canadian goods over Ontario's television advertisement featuring former President Ronald Reagan's condemnation of tariffs—an announcement that came Saturday, in the lead-up to the US Supreme Court hearing arguments on his trade war.
"The president announces an arbitrary price hike on Americans because his feelings are hurt by an ad accurately quoting Ronald Reagan's criticism of tariffs," US journalist Aaron Rupar wrote on X in response to Trump's Saturday afternoon Truth Social post.
Billy Binion, a reporter for the American libertarian magazine Reason, similarly said: "I don't get how anyone can support the president having power over tariffs after watching this exchange. He is unilaterally raising taxes on Americans—not because of a ~negotiating~ tactic or to create jobs, but because… Canada hurt his feelings. Congress needs to do its job."
Throughout Trump's trade war, experts have emphasized that Americans ultimately pay more because of his tariffs, despite the president's claims to the contrary. Research published earlier his month by the investment bank Goldman Sachs shows that US consumers are shouldering up to 55% of the costs stemming from his taxes on imports.
"Let's be clear about what this is. Canada isn't paying a goddamned thing," Independent White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg stressed Saturday. "He's increasing taxes on Americans by executive fiat because he didn't like an advertisement that quoted Reagan's (accurate) views on tariffs. You (and I) are paying these taxes—not Canada."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, said on X: "1. Reagan's speech is real. 2. It's public domain. 3. Americans pay the cost of the added 10% tariffs, not Canadians. 4. Trump keeps lying because he thinks you're all too stupid to fact-check. 5. The average family will pay an extra $4,900 this year because [of] his tariffs."
The tariff announcement came after Trump suspended trade talks with Canada on Thursday night over the one-minute ad, even though the Canadian federal government did not pay for it. Ontario's provincial government was behind the ad, which uses audio from Reagan's April 25, 1987 radio address on free and fair trade.
Trump on Saturday quoted from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute's Thursday statement, which said that the ad "misrepresents" the address, the Ontario government "did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks," and the organization "is reviewing its legal options in this matter."
Several journalists and other observers have concluded that "the ad faithfully reproduced Mr. Reagan's words, just in a different order," as the New York Times' Matina Stevis-Gridneff put it.
"When someone says, 'Let's impose tariffs on foreign imports,' it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it works—but only for a short time," the ad begins. "Over the long run such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer."
"High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars," the clip of Reagan's voice continues. "Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people lose their jobs."
Ontario's premier, Doug Ford, said Friday that "our intention was always to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses. We've achieved our goal, having reached US audiences at the highest levels. I've directed my team to keep putting our message in front of Americans over the weekend so that we can air our commercial during the first two World Series games."
After speaking with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Ford said, "Ontario will pause its US advertising campaign effective Monday so that trade talks can resume. The people elected our government to protect Ontario—our workers, businesses, families, and communities. That's exactly what I'm doing. Like I said earlier today: Canada and the US are neighbors, friends, and allies. We're so much stronger when we work together. Let's work together to build Fortress Am-Can and make our two countries stronger, more prosperous, and more secure."
Ford's pledge to pull the ad next week clearly did not appease the US president. Hours after Trump announced the new tariffs on Saturday, Dominic Leblanc, the Canadian minister of US-Canada trade, urged engagement at the federal level.
"As the prime minister said yesterday, we stand ready to build on the progress made in constructive discussions with American counterparts over the course of recent weeks," Leblanc wrote on social media. "We will remain focused on achieving results that benefit workers and families in both the United States and Canada, and that progress is best achieved through direct engagement with the US administration—which is the responsibility of the federal government."
Meanwhile, Carney seemed to take swipes at Trump at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Malaysia on Sunday. As CBC reported, he said that "we have all been reminded of the importance of reliable partners—who honor their commitments, who are there in tough times, and who engage collaboratively to fix something that isn't working."
"Canada is such a partner, a dependable partner, and I have come to Kuala Lumpur to say clearly that we want to play a bigger role in this region," Carney continued, as Trump also headed to Malaysia. "Like ASEAN, Canada values the rules-based system. We respect trade agreements and the rule of law. We believe in the value of the free exchange of goods, capital, and ideas."
The escalation between the US and its second-largest trading partner comes as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments over the president's authority to impose sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Trump's Saturday remarks were widely regarded as highly relevant to the case.
"Trump is raising US tariffs on Canada by 10% because he's unhappy that Ontario ran an ad quoting Ronald Reagan on why tariffs are bad. This is, of course, insane, and Trump has no legal authority to raise tariffs for that reason," said American finance journalist James Surowiecki. "If the Supreme Court can see this and still accept Trump's national security/national emergency argument for why he should be able to impose whatever tariffs he wants on whomever he wants, they are not serious people."
"We're living in a country where the president just randomly raises taxes on a whim because he's in a snit—and no one stops him, even though the Constitution gives him zero power over tariffs," he added. "This is not a constitutional republic at the moment."
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