As NATO faces an era of unprecedented economic coercion between allies, can a military alliance built for tanks and treaties truly protect its members from tariffs and trade wars? In this article, Kaya Dupuis examines Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s landmark speech at the World Economic Forum, arguing that Canada’s pivot toward “strategic autonomy”, leveraging energy, critical minerals and bilateral trade deals as defensive tools, exposes a fundamental gap in NATO’s mandate, one that leaves middle powers increasingly vulnerable to economic threats that Article 5 was never designed to address.
