Canada and Europe have rediscovered their moral compass. They are going to work with China to stop Trump’s authoritarianism. Seriously. One would almost rally behind this.
Nothing exudes love for freedom like a strategic partnership with a one-party state that uses facial recognition to discipline citizens, makes dissidents disappear and uses social credit points to determine who is allowed to travel. But anyway. This time it’s for democracy.
The reasoning is sublime. Trump shouts. Trump insults. Trump defies officials. So Ottawa and Brussels must turn to a regime that monitors 1.4 billion people, suppresses trade unions, imprisons journalists and rewrites history as if it were a Google Doc. After all, freedom is fragile. Especially when voters make the wrong choice.
Do you really think 🇨🇦 PM Mark Carney has only just suddenly developed an interest in deepening engagement with China as a response to whatever Trump has said?
Don’t be naive.
He’s always been a globalist sino enthusiast who has championed greater integration with Chinese… https://t.co/eL0Vyj9L8a pic.twitter.com/GWx0AhIZkh
— Melissa Chen (@MsMelChen) January 17, 2026
Europe lectures on the rule of law while selling ports, power grids and strategic chains to Beijing. Canadian PM Mark Carney (picture) solemnly speaks of values while Chinese investments penetrate deep into Canadian universities and its critical infrastructure. Apparently, freedom is safer when it is managed by a central committee with absolute power.
This is not diplomacy. This is moral cosplay.
Trump is called authoritarian because he disrupts the administrative apparatus. China is called a partner because it smiles, signs contracts and never asks difficult questions about hypocrisy. One threatens the bureaucracy. The other threatens people. Guess who really scares Brussels.
The best part is the play of strategy. Europe and Canada are not challenging America. They are masking their own dependence. Dependent on American defence. Dependent on American technology. Dependent on American markets. And now they also want to be dependent on Chinese capital. They call it diversification. Like an addict switching dealers and calling it self-care.
When Canadian PM Mark Carney flew out of China earlier this month, he promptly declared the U.S.-led “world order” broken.
Don’t expect British leader Keir Starmer to do the same after he visits Beijing.
🔗 https://t.co/LYw2uFNhWy pic.twitter.com/Ple4gh9CZz
— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) January 27, 2026
Freedom rarely disappears with violence. It dissolves into neat words. Strategic autonomy. Multilateral balance. Shared governance. Everyone responsible and at the same time no one accountable.
Trump is useful as a scarecrow. He lets the administrative class sell its own urge for control as a moral necessity. Speech regulation becomes protection. Industrial policy becomes resilience. Surveillance becomes security. And cooperation with China becomes pragmatism.
This is how freedom dies. Not in a square, but in meeting rooms. Not under flags, but under policy documents. Not with boots, but with checklists.
A libertarian does not defend Trump. He defends the principle that power must be fragmented, not concentrated. That exit is more important than good intentions. That a rude president is less dangerous than a perfectly smooth system from which no one can escape.
Macron: “What we need is more Chinese foreign direct investment in Europe in some key sectors to contribute to our growth” pic.twitter.com/qvdfE0U9LO
— Kyle Chan (@kyleichan) January 21, 2026
China is the final destination of that system. Total coordination. Total control. Total obedience. Europe and Canada are not combating authoritarianism by embracing it abroad. They are importing the model, only with better marketing.
And the punchline. When China later exploits that dependence through trade, standards or silent pressure, the same people will say it was inevitable. Structures. Reality. No alternative.
That alternative does exist. It is called freedom. It is messy. Decentralised. It irritates bureaucrats and those in power at the same time.
Just like those old English aristocrats in the 1930s and their love for “that Austrian whose name we shall not mention, with his moustache and Roman salute”.
Roald Schoenmakers is a Libertarian activist and a small business owner in digital marketing in Spain and Argentina
Originally published in Dutch on X.
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