USA Ends 86 Year Old Joint Defense Board with Canada, Citing Security Concerns
archive
Pentagon pauses Canada joint military board, pointing to Carney remarks
Comments:4
by
Colin Meyn - 05/18/26 11:19 AM ET
The Pentagon’s policy chief announced Monday that the United States will suspend its involvement in a joint body that coordinates military consultation with Canada, pointing to Canadian Prime Minister
Mark Carney’s address to the World Economic Forum earlier this year.
The move comes amid
simmering tensions between President Trump and Carney, who is leading a push for the world’s “middle powers” to present a united bulwark to the influence of superpowers U.S. and China.
“A strong Canada that prioritizes hard power over rhetoric benefits us all. Unfortunately, Canada has failed to make credible progress on its defense commitments. DoW is pausing the Permanent Joint Board on Defense to reassess how this forum benefits shared North American defense,” Elbridge Colby, under secretary of defense for policy, said in an X post, using an alternate acronym for the Department of Defense.
“We can no longer avoid the gaps between rhetoric and reality. Real powers must sustain our rhetoric with shared defense and security responsibilities,” Colby added, along with a link to Carney’s January address in Davos.
In that address, Carney sounded a warning about the risks of relying on global “hegemons” and called on middle powers to take a new approach to projecting strength.
“The middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” he said, in a speech widely seen as a shot at Trump’s alienation of U.S. allies.
“We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just,” Carney added.
“This is the task of the middle powers, the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and most to gain from genuine cooperation.”
That speech largely ended the previously friendly relations between Trump and Carney, a former banker elected last year to replace Justin Trudeau.
Trump has since threatened to block the opening of a new bridge connecting Canada and Michigan, while Canada has debated whether to reduce its military purchases from the U.S.
As of late April, Canada
was still reviewing its planned purchase of 88 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets.
In February, the U.S. ambassador to Canada,
Pete Hoekstra, warned that if Ottawa does not buy the F-35s, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a defense partnership operated jointly by the two countries, “would have to be altered.”
Colby on Monday posted a photograph of himself meeting with Hoekstra at the Pentagon. He did not specifically reference the F-35s.
“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,” he wrote along with the photo.
Carney
announced in March that Canada had hit its 2 percent defense spending target years ahead of schedule and was on track to hit 3.5 percent by 2035.
The Hill reached out to Canada’s Defense Ministry for comment on Monday’s announcement.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, it seems like Canada partnering closely with China, freely allowing them to set up secret police stations to terrorize Chinese ex-pats, and doing shit like promoting retarded foreigners who can't speak English or French into OFFICER SCHOOLS FOR THEIR MILITARY, Carney has made the country such a threat that we won't be working together in any regular capacity.
Later hosers.
