HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) — A U.S. senator and supporter of Donald Trump said Friday that the president-elect would laugh at Canada’s current military spending plans and said the country must do more.
Republican Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, ranking member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made the comments at the start of the annual Halifax International Security Forum, which attracts defense and security officials from Western democracies.
According to NATO figures, Canada will spend an estimated 1.33% of GDP on its military budget in 2023, below the 2% target set by NATO countries.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said Canada will meet the alliance’s target by 2032.
“With all due respect. We’re good friends with Canada and they say, ‘Well, we’re working on this.’ We say, ‘What does that mean? And they say, ‘Well, we’re kind of looking at 2032,'” Risch said during a panel discussion.
“If Trump were in this room, you would get a big laugh from him in 2032. It has to be better than that. It really has to be better than that.”
Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair said his government knows it needs to increase defense spending, but he must ensure Canada gets “good value” for its investments.
“When our allies say they want us to keep the promise, I’ve told them the answer is ‘Yes’, and I’ve told them you’re pushing on an open door,” Blair said. “We are going to make those investments.”
Canada is already planning to purchase surveillance planes and helicopters and replenish its ammunition stocks. And has plans to buy submarines in the future.
Trudeau recently re-established a special cabinet committee on Canada-US relations to address his government’s concerns about another Trump presidency.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft said in the waning days of the U.S. presidential election campaign that Canada would be wise to accelerate its timeline for meeting its NATO spending commitments in the event of a Trump victory.
Retired Lieutenant General. Andrew Leslie – a former lawmaker in Trudeau’s government – told a parliamentary defense committee two days after the US election that he senses “no sense of urgency” from the government to meet these obligations.
After Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, NATO allies agreed to end austerity and spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defense within a decade. Canada spent barely 1% at the time.
When it became clear last year that Russia’s war with Ukraine would continue, they decided that 2% should be a spending minimum.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said he expects about two-thirds of the alliance’s 32 member states to spend 2% of GDP on their defense budgets this year, compared to just three countries a decade ago.
