Carney Heads to UN General Assembly Without Speech — SkimNews
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- Mark Carney attends the 81st UN General Assembly in New York from Monday to Wednesday but will not give a speech, instead meeting world and business leaders and taking part in UN events.
- Carney co-hosts a two-state solution event with France and the United Kingdom, one year after the three countries jointly recognized an independent Palestinian state at the General Assembly.
- Ottawa joined European nations earlier this month in pledging to ban imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, accusing Israel of enabling settler violence and expanding settlements deemed illegal under international law.
- The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs called Ottawa's approach a "dangerous double standard," saying UN platforms "brutal regimes while systematically singling out the Jewish state" and urged Carney to bring a "consistent, constructive" stance to New York.
- Carney will join European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at an OceanEye International Alliance event on sustained ocean investment and participate in a multilateral collaboration round table with European Council President António Costa and Kenya's President William Ruto.
- The Trump administration has withdrawn from the WHO and UNESCO, held back UN funding, and left the institution in turmoil as it selects its next secretary-general — the backdrop against which Carney said Canada intends to "help shape" a remade international order.
- Trump imposed 50% tariffs on Canadian goods, moved to ban some imports outright later this month, signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as "Lake America," and directed federal agencies to remove all products of Canadian origin from US government procurement — though no meetings between Carney and US officials are currently scheduled.
- Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand is set to deliver a speech during the General Assembly in Carney's place.
Why it matters: Carney is casting Canada as a defender of multilateralism at the precise moment Trump is withdrawing from it, while simultaneously waging an escalating tariff and procurement war against Ottawa — leaving the PM championing global cooperation to a room that includes the administration most actively tearing it down.
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