Canada’s prime minister offered to “broker a bridge” between two gigantic trade blocs — neither of which include the US or China — as part of his middle-power diplomatic push.
Mark Carney’s remarks follow a Davos speech in which he said medium-sized countries needed to prepare for a world in which superpowers were unlikely to enforce liberal norms. His latest proposal would involve deepening ties between the European Union and the CPTPP, a Pacific trade organization.
Such an agreement would be fiendishly complex, bringing together more than 40 countries across sprawling, unconnected territory, but the EU and its peers must “learn to move more quickly, and in a more flexible way,” experts at the European Council on Foreign Relations noted.
