Many assumed that the Canadian leader was voicing, on behalf of technocratic allies in Europe such as Britain’s Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron, a new commitment to transparency and honesty as a counterweight to US law-breaking abroad.

Nothing could be further from the truth, as highlighted by Carney, Starmer and Macron’s continuing complicity in the Gaza genocide and their silence over Trump’s threats to launch a war of aggression against Iran.

The purpose of Carney’s Davos speech was something else entirely. Trump’s own honesty – his open contempt for international law and enthusiasm for old-school imperialism – threatens to expose their hypocrisy in riding on US coattails.

They have not changed their ways. They simply want Trump to stop blowing up the facade they constructed to conceal and prettify their collusion in US colonialism.

Rubio detonated those lies once again at Munich. When he declared a return to avowed might-is-right imperialism, the conference broke into applause.

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s technocrat-in-chief, said she felt “very much reassured” by Rubio’s speech, calling him a “good friend”.

A few points in this article miss the mark, but this section is completely correct. The EU are only interested in the US putting the mask back on, then business can resume as usual.