Where Are Mark Carney’s Middle Powers?

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Since the outbreak of the Iran War, the world’s middle powers have not acted to secure their mutual interests through cooperation.

When Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced to an audience at the 2026 Davos Conference, “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” he was speaking to a world struggling to adapt to geopolitical shifts and a United States turning away from international leadership. In calling for middle powers to work together, he presented a path forward shaped by common values rather than an unrestrained superpower. But achieving that vision requires action. With the global economy strained by the Iran War, Carney has so far missed a defining opportunity to put his call for cooperation into practice.

Since Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed on March 4, 20 percent of the world’s LNG and crude oil have been blocked. Production has fallen sharply as well. Output from OPEC member states declined by nearly 8 million barrels per day in March, significantly more than the extra 1 million barrels per day supplied by the United States. The result is a cascading shortage of crude oil, jet fuel, fertilizer, and industrial feedstocks such as naphtha, now rippling across global supply chains.

Despite the scale of the shortages, there has been little coordination among countries to handle the ripple effects from the disruptions. The lone exception has been British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s efforts to build a coalition to provide maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz once the conflict ends. Instead, the response has been fragmented, reactive, and overwhelmingly focused on domestic repercussions rather than collective problem‑solving.

Although the........

© The National Interest