'Revolutionary change in American foreign policy': Canada pivoting towards EU, India and China

François Picard is pleased to welcome Anne Applebaum, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of Autocracy, Inc. According to Applebaum, the upheaval in American diplomacy and foreign policy transcends any one administration. She describes a full-fledged transformation in the way the United States exerts power, pivoting away from leadership of a democratic alliance and toward a transactional, mafia-style politics that fuses ideology, private economic interests, personal relationships and geopolitical leverage. In Applebaum’s analysis, the consequences are already extending well beyond Washington. Canada, for example, has begun taking a far more proactive approach to strengthening its economic and political ties with the EU, India and China, as Carney actively seeks to reduce the country’s dependence on its once-cozy, decades-long relationship with the United States. Nor is this shift limited to the American continent. European governments are now being forced to confront a far less predictable and increasingly adversarial ally. At the same time, far-right movements abroad are finding new opportunities for political alignment as the United States embraces a harder-line, populist and...