Mark Carney takes on Trump head-on

Suh Kyoung-ho

The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney wrote “Value(s): Building a Better World for All” (2021) after serving as governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013 and the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020. The Korean translation runs to roughly 800 pages. Written while Carney was also serving as a United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance, the book is filled with arguments for a more virtuous capitalism. The Financial Times even observed that some parts sounded as if an Occupy Wall Street protester, not a consummate financial insider, had written them.

Carney, who spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs and knows Wall Street’s logic intimately, blamed the 2008 global financial crisis on three lies of finance.

The first is “this time is different,” which he called the four most expensive words in English. The second is “the market is always right.” Markets, he argued, are clear and certain only in economics textbooks: People are irrational, and economies are imperfect. Faith in market infallibility prevented policymakers from responding properly. The third is “markets are moral.” Carney cited repeated financial misconduct to show otherwise.

To resist those seductive beliefs, he argued, policymakers and market participants must bind themselves like Odysseus to the mast against the sirens’ song, recognize the market’s limits and rediscover responsibility for the financial system.

Carney also wrote that trust “arrives on foot and leaves in a Ferrari.” That line recalls Korea’s recent experiment with single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds. Measures introduced aggressively with exchange-rate stability in mind helped turn the Kospi into a symbol of extreme volatility watched worldwide. As the market repeatedly soared and plunged, retail investors suffered. Trust in government policy seemed to speed away in a Ferrari.

The episode reminds us that market interventions can carry costs far beyond their immediate objective. Policies designed for one purpose can distort incentives elsewhere, particularly when authorities underestimate how quickly investors react. For a former central banker like Carney, that is precisely why institutional credibility matters. Once confidence disappears, restoring it is far harder than losing it.

U.S. President Donald Trump played a significant role, however unintentionally, in turning the economist and financier into a politician. Trump’s erratic second-term tariff policies and rhetoric about making Canada the United States’ 51st state fueled anti-Trump sentiment that helped propel the political newcomer into the prime minister’s office.

Carney drew global attention with his speech at Davos, Switzerland, early this year. He declared that the rules-based order had faded, leaving the strong to do what they could and the weak to endure what they must. He proposed flexible coalitions among middle powers based on pragmatism.

Carney never mentioned Trump by name, but everyone knew who had helped push the world into what he described as an age of rupture. His speech received a rare standing ovation at Davos. Critics, including U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, have questioned whether a middle-power coalition is realistic given its lack of cohesion. Still, Carney’s words were cathartic for people watching Trump repeatedly defy expectations.

In July, Carney joined Alberta’s premier to announce plans for a pipeline stretching more than 1,100 kilometers (683.5 miles). Carney is a Liberal and the Alberta premier a conservative, yet they appeared smiling together. Ottawa and Alberta united behind reducing Canada’s dependence on pipelines serving only the U.S. market.

Few expected Carney, a former UN climate envoy and environmental advocate, to champion a massive pipeline. But he showed political flexibility. Trump’s pressure helped unite Canada and made environmental compromise possible.

Ottawa has now become the first U.S. ally to enter a full-fledged tariff battle with Washington. After Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on an equivalent amount of U.S. products starting on Sept. 8. It has also targeted exports from politically competitive U.S. states ahead of the midterm elections.

It is a tariff war as refreshing to some as Carney’s rhetoric. Fighting an economy roughly 13 times Canada’s size may look reckless, but one hopes that Ottawa can defend its interests while finding a workable balance.

Korea has reason to watch closely. Washington recently demanded an additional 7 trillion won ($5.1 billion) for a Texas gas-fired combined-cycle power project considered a leading candidate to become Korea’s first investment under its U.S. investment commitments. The United States is also signaling semiconductor tariffs while pressing Korean chipmakers for more U.S. investment.

Korea, like many allies facing increasingly onerous U.S. demands, has good reason to watch Canada’s struggle with interest — and to quietly root for its success.