The United States has suspended its participation in the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, the oldest standing defence institution shared by Washington and Ottawa, in a pointed rebuke to the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The board, created in 1940 to coordinate the defence of North America, has operated continuously for 86 years. Its suspension was announced by Elbridge Colby, the US Undersecretary of Defense, who said in a social-media post that his department would pause its involvement to “reassess” the forum’s benefits.
Mr Colby said Canada had not made “credible progress” on its defence commitments. US officials linked the decision explicitly to a speech Mr Carney delivered at the World Economic Forum in Davos four months ago, which Washington has cited as an example of a gap between rhetoric and action.
Mr Carney’s government had presented its defence record as a success, noting that Canada this year crossed NATO’s benchmark of spending 2 per cent of gross domestic product on defence for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
But the United States has since pressed members of the alliance to aim far higher. Washington now favours a target of 3.5 per cent of GDP, a level that would require Canada to more than double its current military budget.
The suspension is the latest sign of strain in a relationship that has cooled sharply over trade and security. The Permanent Joint Board has historically served as a forum for senior officials and military officers to discuss continental defence, including the jointly run North American Aerospace Defense Command.
Canadian officials did not immediately say how they would respond. Mr Carney, a former central banker who has sought to position Canada as a reliable partner to its allies, faces domestic pressure to defend the country’s spending record while avoiding an open breach with its largest trading partner.