On 11 October, Canada’s Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, made a high-profile call for friend-shoring. Freeland argued that the world’s democracies should come together to reconstruct global supply chains in a manner that is consistent with “our most deeply held principles.” She then went further, arguing for strengthening a much wider array of ties among democratic countries in order to limit their collective vulnerability to autocratic regimes. This expanded concept of friend-shoring would be used to counter a range of challenges, including economic and security competition with China, the weakening of democracy and the rise of autocracy, over-reliance on Russian energy, unreliable supply chains, and economic inequality, all while accelerating the green energy transition. According to Freeland, links with autocratic regimes should be limited, and “in-between” states should be encouraged to embrace the values of this new club of democracies. Her proposal is now being called “the Freeland doctrine.”
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