President Donald Trump has rescinded his invitation to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to join his Board of Peace after the Canadian leader gave a fiery speech at Davos in which he said the rules-based world order was over and urged medium-size powers to act together to avoid being “on the menu.”
“Dear Prime Minister Carney,” Trump wrote on Truth Social late Thursday. “Please let this Letter serve to represent that the Board of Peace is withdrawing its invitation to you regarding Canada’s joining, what will be, the most prestigious Board of Leaders ever assembled, at any time.”
Trump didn’t explain his reasoning, but the withdrawal of Canada’s invitation is the latest escalation in tensions between the leaders of the neighboring powers, who traded barbs in high-profile speeches at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The White House has sent invitations to at least 50 countries to join the Board of Peace, which the Trump administration envisages as a sweeping body intent on resolving global conflicts, with a scope rivaling the United Nations.
At Davos on Thursday, Trump was joined by representatives from 19 countries at a signing ceremony. While more than two dozen nations have accepted, several traditional allies including European nations have declined or equivocated, citing the need to study the proposal further.
Canada had accepted an invitation on principle but said it would not pay $1 billion for a permanent seat. Carney said separately he thought Canada’s participation would be conditional on the resumption of a “full flow” of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Carney’s frank speech Tuesday received a rare standing ovation in the room and has been viewed by many as a defining moment of the gathering of the world’s political and economic elite. In it, Carney took a veiled swipe at his American counterpart, without naming Trump or the United States directly.
“Middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” Carney warned. “In a world of great-power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: compete with each other for favor or to combine to create a third path with impact.”
He also urged fellow world leaders to take an unfettered world view. “Call it what it is — a system of intensifying great-power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion,” he said. He warned that the status-quo international order was over and “is not coming back.”
Carney’s comments were splashed across global front pages and the video of his speech watched millions of times — including, apparently, by Trump, who used his turn at the Davos podium the following day to hit back.
Trump told the audience on Wednesday that Canada “lives because of the United States — remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements,” he said.
“Canada gets a lot of freebies from us,” Trump told the forum. “They should be grateful, also, but they’re not. I watched your prime minister yesterday. He wasn’t so grateful.”
On his return to Canada, Carney posted a statement on X hitting back at Trump’s claims. “Canada and the United States have built a remarkable partnership, in the economy, in security, and in rich cultural exchange,” he said. “But Canada doesn’t ‘live because of the United States’. Canada thrives because we are Canadian,” he added.
In an addressThursday Carney further seemed to paint himself as Trump’s political foil. “We can show that another way is possible, that the arc of history isn’t destined to be warped toward authoritarianism and exclusion; it can still bend toward progress and justice,” he said.
In the year since his return to the White House, Trump has frequently called out Canada, historically one of America’s closest allies, imposing tariffs on its goods and threatening to use “economic force” to compel it to join the U.S. as the 51st state. He has questioned Canada’s viability as an independent country and said it would “cease to exist” without U.S. support. Such actions and comments have drawn broad rebuke from Canadians and opened the most serious rift between the neighbors in two centuries. In November, Carney said he apologized to Trump after a television advertisement aired in the U.S. criticizing tariffs, derailing trade talks between the two countries.
Hours before Carney’s Davos speech, Trump posted a digitally altered image on social media of a map with the U.S. flag superimposed on Canada — along with Venezuela, whose leader, Nicolás Maduro, he ordered captured this month and Greenland, which he has threatened to seize.
Amanda Coletta and Kelly Kasulis Cho contributed to this report.
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