Remarkably, many news articles are citing confusion in trying to understand why U.S. Undersecretary of War, Elbridge Colby, announced the suspension of U.S. participation in the Permanent Joint Board on Defense with Canada. However, the announcement comes immediately after his meeting with U.S. ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, at the Pentagon and the comment, “we’re working closely to ensure every NATO partner, including Canada, reaches the Hague Summit’s 3.5% GDP defense spending target, a vital investment for North American and Arctic defense.”
The issue, as outlined by Undersecretary Colby, centers around Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent statements in antagonism toward the U.S., a public announcement that Canada would not be purchasing U.S. military equipment and the biggest issue of all, that Canada is not living up to the NATO defense spending agreements.
It was in December of 2024, immediately after the November election where Donald Trump won, when then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau flew to Mar-a-Lago for dinner with President Trump and told him there’s no way that Canada could meet their NATO obligations. Canada had relied on the USA to provide all national defense and was 16th in defense spending at 1.1% of GDP. {CITATION}
The issue of NATO compliance was part of a larger discussion around trade imbalances, non-tariff barriers, intellectual property conflicts and legislative hurdles that Canada used as a crutch to retain economic benefit without reciprocity.
Trudeau was arguing that Canada could not change all the points of conflict, drop their non-tariff barriers, comply with NATO demands and simultaneously get into total alignment with the USMCA trade compact (CUSMA to Canada), because their climate policies did not support or match the heavy industrial processing capabilities of both the United States and Mexico.
This triggered President Trump to respond with the 51st state, notation. Essentially, if you cannot be a partner with equal capabilities; and if you need to retain structural economic dependency; then Canada should just become a 51st state of the USA.
Since that time, things went downhill quickly. Instead of trying to find ways to eliminate points of conflict, Prime Minister Mark Carney began a campaign of aggressive anti-Trump narrative distribution in order to maximize domestic political benefits.
President Trump then turned toward Mexico and began working with USTR Jamieson Greer to construct what is essentially a bilateral trade agreement between the U.S. and Mexico.
The administration began ignoring Canada, planning instead to announce the upcoming dissolution of the USMCA and then force Canada to negotiate a bilateral. A jilted Canada then began doubling and tripling down on the anti-Trumpism, with Carney saying the era of trade between the USA and Canada is over.
Carney then reached out to Europe and China for trade replacement value and began making announcements about no longer purchasing U.S. manufactured fighter jets and military hardware.
U.S. Undersecretary of War, Elbridge Colby meets with U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, and obviously the NATO stuff is just the straw that ended the U.S. participation in the Permanent Joint Board on Defense with Canada. Not a complicated timeline to figure out.
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