Try explaining this one: President Donald Trump’s relaxed — almost insouciant — response to news that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged allegiance to a China-centered “new world order."

Why did Trump appear to shrug off Carney’s insistence that Canada’s future lies more with China than with the United States?

Carney’s favorable assessment of China’s role in climate and green finance is not an isolated remark.

Perhaps it has something to do with Greenland and Canada being viewed as components of Trump’s broader Western Hemisphere security plan.

Cue the black helicopters

Not long ago, “new world order” belonged firmly in the vocabulary of conspiracy theorists. But in Beijing last week, Carney elevated the phrase into an official Liberal talking point.

So what did Carney say? Plenty.

Mine is the first visit of a Canadian prime minister to China in nearly a decade. The world has changed much since that last visit, and I believe the progress that we have made in the partnership sets us up well for the new world order.

Trump did not respond immediately. Instead, he waited until the end of the news day last Friday before offering his reaction.

“That’s what he should be doing, and it’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal. If you can get a deal with China, you should do that,” Trump said.

Not the response many expected from a president who has urged countries in the Western Hemisphere to distance themselves from Beijing.

World order word salad

Pressed on what he meant by a “new world order,” Carney responded with his characteristic blend of abstraction and deflection.

So the question is, what gets built in that place? How much of a patchwork is it? How much is it just on a bilateral basis? Or where do like-minded countries in certain areas? So like-minded countries, just to be clear, doesn't mean you agree on everything. So aspects, for example, on digital trade or agricultural trade, climate finance as another area to move into areas of geo-strategy, geo-security, you will have different coalitions that are formed. So what this partnership does is in areas, for example, of clean energy, conventional energy, agriculture, as we were just talking about, and financial services, which we have talked less about, but the evolution of the global financial system.

Trump’s nonchalance was not shared by conservative commentators, who sharply criticized Carney’s remarks.

Alex Jones, for one, described Carney as “a Klaus Schwab acolyte” and warned: “You are about to see the globalist prime minister of Canada pledge allegiance to the communist dictator in China, Xi Jinping."

RELATED: What does Trump see in Canada's pro-China prime minister?

Chip Somodevilla/Dave Chan/Getty Images

China guy

So far, Carney’s new world order with China has produced a trade agreement allowing up to 49,000 electric vehicles to be imported into Canada annually at a reduced tariff of 6.1%. In return, China is expected to lower tariffs on Canadian agricultural exports — most notably canola oil, a key cash crop for Canadian farmers — to roughly 15%.

But there is nothing new about Carney’s deference to China.

After leaving the Bank of England in 2020, Carney became vice chairman of the board of Bloomberg L.P., the privately held financial data and media company founded by Michael Bloomberg. During the same period, he also served as co-chair of the U.N.-backed Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, working alongside Bloomberg in his separate capacity as the United Nations’ Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions.

In that capacity, Carney consistently praised the alleged environmental stewardship of China, somehow locating a deep commitment to fighting climate change in a country that continues to power its economy with coal-fired plants.

Take Carney’s March 2024 visit to China, during which he told a reporter for the Chinese business outlet 21st Century Business Herald (English translation via Google Translate):

China has made a huge contribution to the fight against climate change, not only in terms of its massive investment in clean technologies and exporting them to other countries, but also in actively developing the financial system needed for the green transition.

Yuan to grow on

Carney’s favorable assessment of China’s role in climate and green finance is not an isolated remark. It aligns with a broader argument he has advanced in recent years: that global economic leadership should become more multipolar, with China playing a larger role alongside — rather than beneath — U.S. dominance.

That worldview extends to currency and finance. At the 2019 Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, Carney argued that the world should reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar by exploring a new “synthetic hegemonic currency,” a framework designed to dilute the dominance of any single national currency.

Carney did not explicitly call for the Chinese yuan to replace the U.S. dollar outright. But his proposal would, by design, weaken the centrality of the dollar and expand the influence of non-U.S. currencies and financial systems.

Trump, for his part, has twice endorsed Carney during Canadian federal elections. Their relationship — particularly during Oval Office meetings — has been described as friendly, though it may be better understood as Trump indulging a leader he views as temporary.

Why does Trump consistently give Carney a pass?

Perhaps because Trump sees Carney less as a lasting architect of global order than as a passing phenomenon — unlikely to impede the president’s broader aim of reinforcing American economic primacy, regardless of how warmly Carney speaks of China’s place in the world.