A Tale of two speeches

By Antonio Aragón

Two speeches at Davos, during the World Economic Forum, captured the same global moment but from radically different positions of power. 

Which one did your algorithm feed you? 

This impacts international education in more ways than you might expect.

Disruption vs. Rupture

On the strong hand, we have the US president Donald Trump, speaking from the position of a hegemon. A country that for decades has played the role of influencer, protector and enforcer. The tone has become familiar: off-script, assertive, intentionally disruptive.

Rules don’t work? Break them. Order feels shaky? Apply pressure.

On the other hand, the open hand, Mark Carney, Canada’s Prime Minister, speaking from the perspective of a middle power. His message wasn’t about disruption, but rupture.

Not just systems under strain, but broken expectations.

I’ve seen this movie before…

The middle space, where nuance lives, can be uncomfortable.

It creates impatience. 

And that impatience matters because sectors that depend on trust, coordination, and long timelines don’t get to resolve uncertainty quickly or force it away.

International education is one of them.

The alternative, which is assertion, doesn’t eliminate uncertainty. 

You can try to bully your way forward when you have leverage, capital, or dominance, but even the strong hand has limits.

We just don’t often talk about them… Until Carney chose to name them plainly, in front of a global audience.  

What the algorithms are really sorting

Algorithms aren’t just feeding us content based on our own interests. They’re sorting responses to fear: fear of loss, fear of exposure, fear that cooperation no longer pays.

This isn’t just a worldview debate. It’s already shaping which systems are allowed time to adapt and which are left exposed.

Why the strong hand appeals right now

For many, particularly those who feel economically or culturally disenfranchised, institutions no longer feel protective. 

Multilateralism sounds abstract. Process feels slow. Trust feels naïve.

In that context, the strong hand becomes appealing. 

It promises clarity, direction and action. Even when it doesn’t solve the problem, it reassures people that something is being done.

In moments of uncertainty, assertion can travel faster than reflection. But assertion also externalizes risk.

When power withdraws from stewardship and focuses on advantage, those without leverage absorb the instability, whether they are middle powers, mid-level leaders, or institutions built on cooperation rather than force.

Why multilateralism feels naïve 

For those who work across borders, cultures, and long time horizons,  unpredictability itself becomes the threat.

Sudden shifts create anxiety.

In that context, the open hand matters. Not as idealism, but as infrastructure. It’s the invisible work that allows people to plan, move, and commit.

At the same time, a purely cooperative model can feel vague, elitist, or disconnected when people are experiencing immediate pressure.

That tension explains why multilateralism is increasingly dismissed as woke, naïve, or outdated, even as many still depend on it.

International education as a bellwether

This reflection begins with two speeches, but it isn’t really about them.

It’s about what they reveal.

Moments like this function as rehearsals: early signals of how power will be exercised, resisted or shared in the years ahead.

International education happens to sit at the intersection of these approaches. It is already feeling the consequences of it because it depends on trust across borders, it requires long-term commitment from governments, communities and families. It assumes a basic level of predictability: visas, recognition, policy continuity.

At the same time, it is increasingly affected by political rhetoric, migration anxiety and generational amnesia about why post-war cooperation emerged in the first place.

These pressures are not abstract

They are showing up in enrollment decisions, mobility patterns, organizational cultures, and leadership styles.

The speeches at Davos offer two responses to the same anxiety. Neither solves the problem alone. But together, they reveal the crossroads we’re at. Not between right and wrong, but between how power is exercised and who bears the cost when it is.

I’m personally more at home in pluralistic, cooperative frameworks. That’s the world I’ve worked in for decades. But things are changing and I must be realistic. I can see where they fail, when they become complacent, too slow, or disconnected from lived reality.

The real question is not wether we favour strength or openness in theory, but which response we make habitual when uncertainty arises.

Fear and force scale quickly. Adaptation takes longer, but it compounds.

So what exactly are we normalizing? 

This is not a call to pick sides. It is a call to pay attention and an invitation to recognize the pattern.

What we normalize now, individually and collectively, will shape what comes next. 

That is why this moment matters.

When the next generation of students navigating an international system look back on this period, what will our default response reveal about us? 

Because if we don’t engage deliberately, the algorithm will do it by default.