At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a sobering diagnosis of our times: the rules-based international order is fading; the strong increasingly do as they wish, while the weak are left to suffer what they must.
Trade rules are enforced asymmetrically, international law is applied selectively, and powerful states exempt themselves when convenient. French President Emmanuel Macron echoed this unease, calling for a truly free world and warning a shift away from ‘multilateralism’. It’s a shift towards a world without rules, where international law is trampled underfoot and where the ‘only law that seems to matter is that of the strongest’.
These warnings were not abstract reflections. They were an unmistakable response to the conduct and rhetoric of US President Donald Trump, whose actions increasingly embody the very disorder these leaders cautioned against.
In a stark departure from diplomatic norms, constitutional restraint, and long-tested pathways to peace, the elected leader of 348 million people appears to be treading a perilous path of belligerence. Instead of exhausting dialogue, strengthening democratic mechanisms, and respecting international law, President Trump has shown undue haste towards militarism, coercion, and intimidation—deploying tariffs, threats, and force as instruments of policy against militarily weaker nations.
This is neither the creed of the American people nor the constitutional promise of the United States. The US Constitution does not sanction aggression, imperial land grabs, or the bullying of sovereign peoples. Yet today, the world witnesses an alarming contradiction: a president of one of the world’s greatest democracies drifting away from diplomacy towards ego-driven adventurism.
President Trump’s remarks at Davos on Greenland expose this contradiction most starkly. While ruling out the use of “excessive force,” he simultaneously pressed for swift negotiations and insisted on US control of the autonomous territory—declaring he wanted it “at any cost.” This posture is not diplomacy; it is coercive bargaining.
Diplomacy rests on consent, patience, and mutual respect. When urgency is imposed by a superpower upon a small autonomous region with a population of just 57,000—people who have repeatedly and unequivocally chosen to remain with Denmark—it ceases to be negotiation and begins to resemble intimidation. Sovereignty belongs to peoples, not empires, and self-determination is not a commodity to be traded under pressure.
Trump’s conciliatory language about restraint is therefore tactical, not substantive. In a world of grossly unequal power, negotiations conducted under public pressure from a military superpower are inherently unequal. Even without explicit threats, might precedes right.
Greenland is not an isolated episode. It fits a broader and troubling pattern.
From Venezuela—where the elected leadership was abducted—to open threats against Colombia, Mexico, and Cuba; from Iran—where crippling sanctions strangled civilian life and economic desperation was cynically exploited—to overt and covert regime-change designs, the pattern is consistent: manufacture crises, apply pressure, and justify interventions.
In Iran’s case, Trump openly encouraged unrest while ignoring the devastating human cost of US-imposed sanctions. Economic strangulation has become one of the deadliest weapons in modern arsenals, producing hunger, despair, and preventable deaths. Yet interference continues, including the promotion of a former monarch’s son as an alternative to Iran’s own political processes—an affront to the Iranian people’s right to decide their future free of foreign manipulation.
Equally troubling is the systematic erosion of multilateralism. President Trump’s withdrawal from UN bodies, funding cuts, and disdain for international institutions reflect an open contempt for collective global governance. His self-appointed role in Gaza—bypassing the UN while remaining complicit in Israel’s devastation of the territory—exposes the paradox of claiming peace credentials while actively undermining peace.
The Gaza ceasefire he championed has proven hollow, repeatedly violated, mocked and observed more in breach than to be adhered by Israel. Zionist forces remain entrenched; children, women, journalists, and civilians continue to be killed. Gaza burns, starves, and bleeds under a siege enabled by US military, diplomatic, and political cover. The so-called roadmap to peace ignores Palestinians’ historic right to self-determination while illegal settlements, settler violence, and forced displacement continue unabated in the West Bank.
Ukraine tells a similar story. Promises to end the war within days have dissolved into rhetoric. As the conflict enters its fourth year, peace remains elusive, and diplomacy is overshadowed by militarization.
The contradiction deepens further in the Middle East. Despite advance knowledge, Trump did not prevent Israeli strikes on Iran’s peaceful nuclear facilities, while Israel’s own undeclared nuclear arsenal remains beyond scrutiny or sanction. Power shields impunity.
It was therefore, no surprise when UK Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, speaking in the House of Commons, described President Trump as behaving like an “international gangster”—threatening allies, trampling sovereignty, and undermining NATO. This was not mere rhetoric; it was a rare moment of candour from a respected parliamentarian voicing what millions fear but few leaders dare to say.
Such dissent does not weaken alliances; it strengthens moral clarity. The world does not need a global policeman intoxicated by power. It needs leadership that extinguishes fires rather than ignites them.
President Trump’s repeated claims of ending multiple wars and his fixation on the Nobel Peace Prize collapse under scrutiny. A man who vetoes ceasefire resolutions, sells weapons into war zones, sanctions civilians into starvation, and celebrates coercion cannot credibly claim the mantle of peace.
Peace is not forged through bunker-busting bombs, economic sieges, abducting leaders, or threats of annexation. It is built through patience, dialogue, justice, and respect for sovereignty
The world today is more fragile, unpredictable, volatile, and uncertain than before—not because of fate, but because of choices. Bloodshed, hunger, displacement, and despair are man-made tragedies, intensified by intimidation rather than reconciliation.
History’s enduring lesson is clear: no conflict has ever found lasting resolution through force alone. Humanity has paid too high a price for endless wars.
Let America, true to its democratic soul and constitutional promise, lead by healing wounds, narrowing chasms, and ending wars—not by exporting conflict through threats, tariffs, and militarised diplomacy.
Peace is not weakness.
Peace is wisdom.
Peace is humanity’s only durable victory.
The bitter yet courageous words of Mark Carney and Ed Davey carry uncommon weight because they echo what much of the world already feels but rarely hears from position of power. They are not voices of defiance alone; they are expression of global conscience. In naming erosion of the rules-based order and exposing the arrogance of coercive power, they give language to a shared unease-that the world is being bent not by justice, but by force.
Any new world order now imagined must not be shaped by Imperial appetites or narrow national interests. It must rise from collective wisdom of humanity, reflecting the aspirations of peoples rather than the ambitions of the powerful. Peace cannot be imposed by dominance, nor can stability be built on intimidation. A durable global order must rest on equality, dignity and respect for sovereignty-principles long promised yet selectively applied
This is what the people of the planet seek; not a world policed by fear, but one governed by a shared moral compact where justice is not a privilege of power but a right of all.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
The writer is a Shikarpur-based retired civil servant. The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the newspaper