ANALYSIS: Carney, Trump, and the "hockey" approach

Step 1 — Reject the framework imposed by Trump

Scaramucci’s first rule: never take a call on Trump’s terms. What does that mean in practice? Trump operates through surprise phone calls, often recorded without his knowledge by his own staff, often followed by unilateral press releases in which he spins the story to his advantage. The trap is well-known: whoever picks up the phone gets drawn into a narrative they can no longer control. Carney, on the other hand, set his own terms from the very first official contact on March 28, 2025. No immediate visit to Washington. No smiling photo in the Oval Office. No joint statement prepared by the White House. A structured, scheduled call, the contents of which were released by Ottawa before the White House had time to rewrite them.

This reversal of the usual framework is extremely rare. It implies something no other Western leader has dared to do: accepting the risk of an immediate breakdown in relations. If Trump had rejected Canada’s conditions, Carney would have lost face. But Trump did not refuse. Why? Because the economic balance of power between the two countries, contrary to popular belief, is not as asymmetrical as people think. Canada supplies 60% of the oil imported by the United States, 85% of the electricity imported by the northern states, and virtually all of the uranium needed for U.S. nuclear power plants. Carney knows this. Trump knows it too, even if he pretends to ignore it at rallies. The standoff is real on both sides. And the first one to back down loses everything.

People called it “Canadian arrogance.” It was actually oil arithmetic.

Move 2 — Silence in the Face of Attacks on Truth Social

Rule number two: don’t respond when Trump attacks on social media. Between March and June 2025, Trump posted at least 47 messages hostile toward Canada, Carney personally, or the “51st State”—his recurring obsession with annexing Canada, which he has publicly reiterated on at least 23 occasions since January 2025. Carney did not respond to any of these provocations on social media. Not a single tweet. Not a sarcastic retort. Not a theatrical outburst of indignation. Nothing. When a reporter asked him in late May 2025 about Trump’s latest attacks, Carney replied with a statement that sums up his approach: “I negotiate with the U.S. president, not with his social media posts.”

This discipline is harder than it seems. Every Western leader who has publicly responded to Trump—Trudeau senior and junior, Macron during his first term, Sheinbaum in Mexico in 2025—has fueled the machine. Trump thrives on a response. Every retort becomes a talking point for his supporters, proof that his opponent fears him enough to react, and a pretext for escalation. Silence, on the other hand, breaks that cycle. Carney turned his lack of reaction into a weapon: the Canadian press, the international press, and even part of the American press interpreted this silence as a form of sovereign disdain. Trump was shouting into a dead phone. And every day of silence made his position look more ridiculous in the eyes of his own Republican lawmakers from border states, who saw their exports blocked without any visible gains.

Move 3 — A Public Stance of Defiance

Rule Three: publicly declare that you’re ready to fight. Carney did just that in his victory speech on the evening of April 28, 2025, before supporters waving “elbows up” signs. He said, word for word: “Canada will never be for sale.” A short sentence. A sharp statement. A phrase that went around the world in six hours. He repeated it on May 6, 2025, during his visit to the White House—his first in-person meeting with Trump—right in the Oval Office, in front of the cameras, without looking away, just as Trump had just reiterated his annexation fantasy. Trump smiled. Carney did not.

This combative stance is not theater. It is backed by concrete decisions that Carney announced before each meeting: a new defense plan, new trade partnerships, new energy infrastructure focused on the Atlantic. When Trump threatens, Carney responds with structural announcements that render the threat less effective the next time around. That is the difference between bravado and strategy. Bravado says: I’m not afraid. Strategy says: I don’t need you anymore. And it was this second phrase—never spoken but ever-present in every Canadian move—that ultimately forced Trump to truly sit down at the negotiating table in the summer of 2025, and then to accept, in September 2025, a framework agreement that defused most of the initial tariffs in exchange for Canadian commitments on border security and critical minerals.

Elbows up. Not to elbow anyone. So no one pushes you around anymore.

The Man Who Respects Only Resistance

Scaramucci has known Trump since the 1990s. Before those fateful eleven days in July 2017, he had rubbed shoulders with the New York businessman in Manhattan’s financial circles for two decades. His assessment is cold: Trump operates according to a binary dominance framework. Either you’re stronger than him, or you’re weaker. There are no equals. No partners. No allies in the traditional sense. Those who present themselves as supplicants are classified as weak and treated as such—Trudeau Jr. in 2018, Zelensky in February 2025, Sheinbaum at the start of her term in Mexico. Those who present themselves as competitors capable of causing harm are classified as worthy and treated with a strange form of rough respect.

This framework is consistent with everything biographers have documented over the past thirty years. Trump, raised by a father who valued nothing but quantifiable victory, has internalized a worldview in which every interaction is a duel. No gray area. No mutually beneficial cooperation. Today’s partner is tomorrow’s enemy if one lets one’s guard down. This worldview has a major flaw, which also leaves the door open for his opponents: Trump is incapable of credibly threatening anyone who doesn’t need him. His power is exercised over those who seek it. Carney refused to be one of those seeking it. The threat fizzled out on its own.

The Boomerang Effect of Flatterers

Leaders who have tried the opposite approach—flattering Trump to appease the beast—have all reaped the same result: more demands, less respect. Emmanuel Macron pioneered the method as early as 2017 with his marathon handshake and the July 14th military parade. The result over eight years: a digital services tax penalized, a climate agreement torpedoed, and the U.S. withdrawal from several treaties. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba traveled to Mar-a-Lago in March 2025 with a symbolic gift for Trump. The result: 24% tariffs on Japanese cars remained in place, and negotiations stalled. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer presented Trump with a royal invitation with great fanfare in mid-2025. The result: tariffs remained in place, and additional demands were made regarding defense.

This mechanism has been documented in social psychology since Festinger: the narcissistic individual interprets flattery as proof of his superiority and escalates his demands accordingly. The more you give in, the more he demands. It’s a downward spiral from which no flatterer emerges a winner. Carney understood this because he spent his career negotiating with people who tried to impose their own terms on him—Wall Street bankers in 2008, hard-Brexit supporters in 2016. He knows that the only antidote to a narcissist in a position of power is measured indifference. Not contempt. Indifference. The difference is crucial: contempt offends and triggers revenge. Indifference disarms and forces them to come to the negotiating table.

There is one thing the narcissist hates above all else: that nothing is expected of him.

Why the Canadian Model Is Not Universally Applicable

We must be realistic: the Carney method works in part because Canada has specific advantages. Vast energy resources. A shared border stretching 8,891 kilometers that is impossible to fully militarize. A population that largely shares American political culture, making media sanctions difficult to sell in the Midwest. A parliamentary political system that gives the prime minister a degree of flexibility unknown in democracies with a divided government. Not all Western countries have these advantages. Germany, for example, which depends on automobile exports to the United States, cannot immediately retaliate with counter-tariffs without risking an industrial recession.

And yet. The central principle of the method—refusing to be the one to make the first move, accepting the risk of a breakdown in relations, and projecting strength before signaling willingness to compromise—is applicable almost everywhere. Poland partially applied it in 2025 regarding Ukrainian issues, refusing to take calls from the U.S. president until the Patriot deliveries promised to Kyiv resumed. The result: three additional batteries were released in May 2025. Australia applied it to the AUKUS submarines, publicly threatening to renegotiate the contract if U.S. delivery delays continued. The result: a renewed commitment from the White House in July 2025. The method works wherever a country negotiates from a position where it truly has something to lose on the other side. It does not work for countries that can only receive.

The Ultimate Test: Ukraine and France

The Ukrainian case remains a painful example of what happens when one doesn’t have the luxury of Canada’s negotiating position. Volodymyr Zelensky tried the “elbows up” tactic in the Oval Office on February 28, 2025. He was physically ejected from the White House in less than two hours. The difference with Carney: Zelensky is at war. He needs the Patriots. He needs satellite intelligence. He needs the Javelins and the HIMARS. Carney, on the other hand, can afford to lose a few months’ worth of tariffs without cities going up in flames. This asymmetry of vulnerability changes everything. The “arms-up” approach assumes that one can withstand the breakdown long enough to force the other side to come back to the table. When every day of breakdown means civilians being killed by Shahed drones, the calculation becomes impossible.

Emmanuel Macron’s France is in an intermediate position. Not at war. But dependent on NATO’s nuclear umbrella, an exporter to the United States, and vulnerable on digital and agricultural issues. Macron has wavered between the flattery of 2017 and an attempt at firmness in 2025—without holding the line long enough. The Carney method requires consistency for at least 18 to 24 months. That is the time needed for the White House to understand that the stance is not a tactical move but a new strategic reality. No European leader has maintained this stance for that long so far. This is likely the main lesson for the continent from the Canadian episode. It is not enough to be firm just once. One must be firm long enough for the cost of firmness to become lower than the cost of surrender.

Zelensky did not lose because he was weak. He lost because he was bleeding while he was negotiating.

A Former Aide Turned Full-Time Whistleblower

Since his ouster in July 2017, Scaramucci has built a second public career as a critical commentator on Trump. He hosts a podcast, appears on CNN and MSNBC, and posts regularly on social media. His credibility stems from one thing: he has seen things from the inside. During those eleven days and throughout the 2016 campaign—when he was one of the top fundraisers—he observed how the Trump machine actually operates. His testimony on June 6, 2026, regarding Carney is therefore not the commentary of a political analyst. It is an insider’s analysis describing a mechanism he has seen in action dozens of times.

What he implies is just as troubling as what he says explicitly. If the Carney strategy works, it’s because Trump is predictable. Because his reactions are mechanical. Because there is no strategic mystery in the White House of 2026: there is a man who acts on identifiable impulses that can be neutralized by refusing to respond to them. This interpretation, if accurate, means that Western foreign ministries have spent two years being steamrolled by an adversary they could have defused by following a simple protocol. This is a damning assessment of the quality of European and Asian diplomatic advisors in 2025–2026. And it is likely the reason why Scaramucci is so insistent: he knows that no one has listened so far, and he hopes that the Canadian example will finally force others to rethink their instincts.

The Potential Domino Effect

The Carney episode could reshape Western diplomacy if other countries draw the right conclusions from it. Several signs emerged in the summer of 2026. In May 2026, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese refused to attend a bilateral summit with Trump until the AUKUS delays were resolved. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, after a period of tariff concessions in early 2025, hardened her stance in the spring of 2026 on issues of energy sovereignty. Norway, through Jonas Gahr Støre, publicly refused in April 2026 to alter its sovereign investment policy to accommodate U.S. demands regarding Israel.

These moves remain isolated. They do not yet form a shared doctrine. But they converge on an insight that Carney has demonstrated in practice: Trump is negotiable, but only by those who agree not to negotiate in the first place. The paradox is absolute, and it is likely the political key to the decade ahead. Countries that wish to preserve their sovereignty in the face of an imperial America will have to learn Canadian patience, Canadian discipline, and the ability to take a short-term hit in order to win the long-term power struggle. Those who continue to rush to Mar-a-Lago with gifts in search of an audience will continue to leave empty-handed and with their reputation tarnished. Court diplomacy is dead. Elbow diplomacy is beginning.

A Lesson in Strategy That Goes Beyond Trump

At its core, the Carney method described by Scaramucci is not merely an anti-Trump formula. It is a fresh interpretation of the balance of power in an era when international predictability is collapsing. For three decades, the liberal order operated on the assumption that negotiations between democracies took place within a stable framework of shared rules. That assumption died in 2025. Carney recognized this sooner than others. His approach is a clear-eyed acknowledgment of a world where each partner must rebuild its sovereignty using its own leverage, without relying on American goodwill, without banking on old alliances, and without confusing long-standing friendship with a present guarantee.

This clarity comes at a cost. In 2025, Canada lost approximately 1.4% of GDP growth directly attributable to tariffs and trade uncertainty, according to estimates by the Conference Board of Canada. Tens of thousands of jobs were threatened in the steel, aluminum, and automotive sectors. Carney accepted this cost because he had calculated that an initial capitulation would have cost more over a ten-year period. He traded immediate pain for lasting sovereignty. Not all leaders will have this political courage. Many prefer short-term gains at the cost of long-term dependence. That is their right. But let them not complain later that Trump does not respect them. Respect, in this system, is earned by refusing to beg for it.

And yet. In the end, it may be a small Nordic country that shows the great powers what dignity means in 2026.

The Possible Legacy

If Carney stays the course until the end of his term, and if the “raised elbows” approach spreads to other capitals, this episode could go down in international relations textbooks as a turning point. Not the turning point of a resounding victory. A turning point demonstrating that organized resistance to a predatory leader remains possible in a democracy—even in the face of American power, even without a formal coalition, even when everyone around is whispering that one must kowtow to survive. This demonstration has a value that extends beyond Canada and beyond Trump. It tells future generations of diplomats that there are other ways to negotiate. That one can lose battles to win the war. That one can preserve what is essential by accepting to pay for what is superfluous.

It remains to be seen whether Europeans, Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans will be able to emulate this stance when their turn comes. The course of history in the coming years will largely be decided there—in those moments when a leader must choose between comfortable flattery and costly firmness. Between an audience at Mar-a-Lago and the refusal to go there. Between a soothing tweet and dignified silence. Mark Carney drew a line. Anthony Scaramucci, the man fired after eleven days, explained why that line held. The rest is up to those who have the courage to redraw it in their own words. Canada will never be for sale. It remains to be seen which other countries will dare to say the same phrase, in the same tone, in front of the same cameras, without looking away.

Signed, Jacques Pj Provost, columnist