Prime Minister Mark Carney delivers a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday. Carney warned that 'middle powers' such as Canada could be subordinated by domineering great powers.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Mark Carney’s stark warnings are by now central to his politics. In April, he told Canadians the old relationship was over. For many months, he has been saying that the world is in a period of “rupture, not transition.” On Tuesday, he pointed to the danger of a new world of rapacious great powers and called for middle powers to band together.

What is different now is that he’s undeniably telling the world that the wolves are at the gate. And for the most part, the wolf he’s warning the world about is Donald Trump. The United States.

His speech called on images of weak compliance and necessary resistance, from an essay by the late author and former Czech president Vaclav Havel about resistance to communism. There was a warning that middle powers, such as Canada and European countries, could be subordinated one by one by domineering great powers – presumably China and the U.S. and perhaps Russia – who now seek to use interdependence between........

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