One year into Donald Trump’s second presidency, a gathering at Massey College in Toronto confronted a question now at the centre of Canadian foreign-policy debate: what happens when the United States can no longer be assumed to anchor the liberal international order—and what does that mean for Canada? What emerged was not a single diagnosis or prescription, but a shared recognition that Canada is operating at what several speakers described as a “moment of rupture.” 

The End of An Assumption

Opening the discussion, Tom S. Axworthy, Chair of the World Refugee & Migration Council and former Secretary to the Prime Minister, noted the symbolic weight of the timing: just over a year since Trump’s second inauguration. Expectations that a second Trump administration might be constrained by institutions or norms, he suggested, have proven misplaced.

Dr. James Orbinski, Principal of Massey College, University of Toronto, framed the challenge in stark terms. Surveying the past year, he pointed to U.S. actions that have weakened multilateral cooperation, including withdrawal from international agreements, the imposition of tariffs, challenges to Canadian and Danish sovereignty (including Greenland), and interventionist actions in Latin America. Orbinski described the United States under Trump as a “predator state.” 

Orbinski echoed remarks made by Prime Minister Mark Carney at the World Economic Forum in Davos, arguing that the world is experiencing “a moment of rupture,” rather than a gradual transition. The liberal international order that emerged after the Second World War—and expanded after 1991—may no longer be viable in its existing form.

Yet Orbinski resisted a wholesale dismissal of that order. He identified its core principles—diplomacy and soft power, improving global quality of life, and the constrained use of military force—and defended its record. Since 1945, he noted, child mortality and extreme poverty have declined, smallpox has been eradicated, and international trade has driven unprecedented economic growth. The system was flawed and unevenly applied, he acknowledged, “but its achievements were real.”

Orbinski argued that the costs of dismantling the system are already visible. Following the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization, deaths from preventable or treatable diseases have increased, and repairing the damage could take decades. Responding to claims that “America First” represents........

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