Davos exposed discontent with Trump's leadership of Conceptual West

US President Donald Trump. The 2026 meeting in Davos exposed the leadership power shift. [AFP]

Something happened recently at the resort city of Davos in Switzerland, that has a population of almost 11,000, to destabilise the sense of togetherness and leadership pecking order in the Conceptual West. Davos has over the years gained prominence as the place where global economic power brokers meet annually with their political counterparts to plot the fate of the rest of the world.

They occasionally invite leaders from African countries mostly to observe the global mighty deliberate. During the 2026 meeting, however, there was a ‘rupture’ of the leadership type in which Mark Carney of the middle power, Canada, displaced Donald Trump of the United States as leader of the Conceptual West.

It was an ugly scene which ignored pretensions of niceties as Carney hit at Donald Trump’s geopolitical weak points and encouraged more leaders to defy the United States president's demands.

Developments at Davos displayed the long decline of the United States as the dominant global power due to two factors. First, it declined in the 1970s with its loss of credibility due to Vietnam and the Watergate scandal and a series of ideological defeats in Nicaragua, Iran, and Angola which led to a re-evaluation of US foreign policy.

It turned to promoting ‘democracy’ and engaging in regime changes as ways of winning the global ‘masses’ especially after it won the Cold War. Second it stopped manufacturing as its ‘globalisation’ campaigns transferred factories to less expensive labour places like China.

International terrorists changed the existing world order by showing weaknesses in the West which gave rise to the New Right which produced Trump. He promised to restore American factories to resuscitate the industrial belt, and aims at dominating everyone, friend or foe. Not everyone is happy.

Davos exposed unhappiness with Trump as leader of the Conceptual West. For 80 years, the US played geopolitical big brother leading the West into hostility against the Soviet Union and Russia. It looked down on all other countries, just like ancient Athens had done and, like Rome which was not at peace as long as Carthage existed, could not rest as long as Russia was rebuilding.

Geopolitical slumber

The rest of the West simply tagged along the Americans lamb-like until Trump jolted them out of their geopolitical slumber. He did it by rejecting the Wilson-Roosevelt post-World War II vision of world order.

Trump wants to create his own world order, vows to ignore international law, and to do as he pleases. He probably wants to revert to pre-1939 ways and impose his ‘Donroe Doctrine’ and ‘Board of Peace’ to replace the United Nations. Reviving 19th Century imperial mind-set, he wants total control of countries in the Western Hemisphere and to mount territorial expansion into Canada and Greenland. He redefined the ‘enemy’ as people without European blood, he abandoned previous American obsession with fixing Russia for being there, and forced NATO to rethink its relevance. Since he wants ‘war’, not ‘defence’, others got worried.  

Among those worried at Davos was Carney - and he took leadership. Calling on middle-level powers to resist geopolitical bullies, causing ‘rupture’ in world order, he offered Canada as “a beacon-an example to a world at sea.” He dismissed Trump’s claim that Canada ‘lives’ because of the US saying: “Canada thrives because we are Canadians.” Adding to Trump’s angst, Carney defiantly continued cutting trade deals with China. Others followed.

When Trump complained about Norway not helping him get the Nobel Peace Prize, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Store educated him. Several major countries rejected membership in his Board of Peace for being unconstitutional. As Trump isolated himself, Carney led other leaders to think of a world without US dominance where each country is free from bullying.

The US dominance at Davos in shaping the world is over. Leadership moved from Trump, US, to Carney, Canada, in the Conceptual West. That leadership power shift in the West is the ‘rupture;’ The Carney Rupture.