OTTAWA \u2014 Prime Minister Mark Carney is heading to a summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Turkey this week with a message that Canada is now pulling its weight in the alliance and ready to do what it takes to get to its ambitious spending target set for 2035.<\/p>\n
But Canada\u2019s increased defence spending will without a doubt be overshadowed by U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s musings in Ankara, whether they are about Iran, Greenland, or leaving NATO altogether.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this might be the tensest summit yet,\u201d said Stephen Saideman, head of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the one hand, (Trump) expects NATO to jump and dance whenever he demands. On another hand, NATO countries paid a real price for this failed war in Iran,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Trump has consistently threatened to pull out of NATO<\/a> since his return to office, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte resorting to flattery to convince him to stay in the alliance.<\/p>\n Rutte has referred to Trump as \u201cdaddy,\u201d<\/a> though he has said stemmed from an awkward translation.<\/p>\n Lately, the NATO chief has attempted to woo the president with the \u201cTrump trillion.\u201d In Washington, Rutte pulled out a chart showing that Europe and Canada have added more than a trillion dollars in defence spending since Trump first came into office in 2017.<\/p>\n Robert Baines, President and CEO of the NATO Association of Canada, said he expects a repeat of Rutte\u2019s \u201cteacher moment\u201d during this summit to \u201cappease\u201d the U.S. President.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the only challenge is going to be making sure the Secretary-General doesn\u2019t bend over too far backwards,\u201d Baines said, adding that the \u201cdaddy\u201d comment and the constant appeasement to satisfy Trump have left a \u201cbad taste\u201d in some people\u2019s mouths.<\/p>\n Trump came out swinging again against the alliance just last week, writing on Truth Social that it is \u201cridiculous\u201d that the U.S. is spending more money on NATO<\/a> than any other country, by far. He has also complained allies have not helped him in the war in Iran.<\/p>\n Trump has not abandoned either his idea of taking over Greenland, a prospect that is bound to increase tension among European allies. One of Trump\u2019s allies, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, said the president was still mulling over that idea<\/a> just days ago.<\/p>\n Saideman said NATO\u2019s goal is to make sure the alliance survives the week. Canada\u2019s will be to avoid being targeted with insults.<\/p>\n Notably, Trump has not singled out Canada over its defence spending in the lead-up to this year\u2019s meeting with NATO allies, although he has done so in the past.<\/p>\n Canada announced earlier this year<\/a> it had achieved NATO\u2019s two per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) defence spending commitment after reclassifying the Canadian Coast Guard\u2019s budget as national defence and giving a substantial pay raise to military personnel.<\/p>\n Thanks to billions of investments in infrastructure such as ports and air bases and major procurement decisions, including new submarines, Carney recently said the country is on track to meet NATO\u2019s next commitment of spending five per cent of GDP on defence by 2035.<\/p>\n A senior government official, speaking at a not-for-attribution technical briefing, said Canada has \u201can extremely positive narrative\u201d heading into the NATO summit because of \u201cgenerational investments\u201d that have been made in defence in the past year.<\/p>\n Rutte has also taken note of Canada\u2019s efforts, recently praising the country and some of its European allies for \u201creally stepping up with record increases.\u201d But he warned that all NATO members need to turn that extra cash into combat-ready capabilities \u2014 and fast.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is our shared priority for the Ankara summit and the years ahead,\u201d the NATO chief said during a press conference last month.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need more forces, we need more resources, and a strong industrial base.\u201d<\/p>\n On Tuesday in Ankara, Carney plans to participate in a discussion at the NATO Defence Industry Forum, where he will be outlining \u201cCanadian leadership in defence financing and innovation to meet allied needs,\u201d according to a senior government official.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, he plans to take part in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council \u2014 the tradition cornerstone session of the summit \u2014 with all 32 allies present. They will be presenting their plans to turn their commitments into tangible military capabilities.<\/p>\n Christopher Coates, director of foreign policy and security issues at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said that while Canada intentions look good, the country will not be delivering concrete, combat-ready capabilities for many years still.<\/p>\n The over-the-horizon radar system that Canada just bought from Australia is expected to be operational by 2029. And equipment such as submarines and aircraft will take many more years to build and become available to NATO allies.<\/p>\n \u201cI realize it\u2019s not immediate. I get that,\u201d Coates said. \u201cBut the method that the government\u2019s chose to pursue defense modernization still remains somewhat bureaucratic\u2026 with pretty long timelines before we see any real capability delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n During the summit, Carney is also expected to offer an update on the planned Defence, Security and Resilience Bank for NATO members which is set to have its headquarters in Canada. And he will be reaffirming Canada\u2019s continued support to Ukraine in the face of Russia.<\/p>\n Although Carney will be holding some bilateral meetings during the summit, it is unclear if he will be meeting with Trump, or as recently happened at the G7, speak with him briefly on the sidelines.<\/p>\n A hot mic moment at that meeting<\/a> caught Carney talking to Trump about the federal government\u2019s decision to allow a limited number of Chinese electric vehicles into Canada, with the prime minister telling the president, \u201cI thought you\u2019d actually like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump then replied, \u201cthat\u2019s good, I like it.\u201d<\/p>\n National Post Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com<\/a> and sign up for our newsletters here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 Prime Minister Mark Carney is heading to a summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[46,56,57,164,1251,299,7,393],"class_list":["post-6134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-canada","tag-defence-spending","tag-donald-trump","tag-european-allies","tag-mark-carney","tag-mark-rutte","tag-nato","tag-nato-countries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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