The rules-based global order is rapidly disintegrating. It’s time for middle powers to stand together
The French president Emmanuel Macron borrowed some lines from Hugh Grant about bullies at the World Economic Forum in Davos. His target was Donald Trump, who had leaked a conciliatory text message from Macron who, evidently, was trying to get the US president to the table to shore up the rapidly disintegrating global order.
In the love-it-or-hate-it Christmas film, Love Actually, Grant – playing the foppish British prime minister of the day – confronts the US president, saying: “A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend, and since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger.”
Zoe Daniel is a three-time ABC foreign correspondent and the former independent member for Goldstein. She is the chair of Mental Health Victoria