The fact that Canadian pundits are still pondering the potential fallout from what was labeled Justin Trudeau’s “gaffe” at the NATO summit speaks volume to the actual state of Canada–U.S. relations.
The incident arose from some candid comments by Trudeau at a Buckingham Palace reception. Trudeau was explaining his tardiness to fellow world leaders Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson as being due to Donald Trump extending his press conference to a full 40 minutes. Trudeau also shared with Macron and Johnson the fact that Trump had made some unscripted comments, which had caused the President’s staffers to drop their jaws in surprise.
Trudeau’s comments were caught by the press pool camera, along with our prime minister’s slightly theatrical imitation of those jaws dropping.
The footage soon went viral, with commentators claiming these world leaders were mocking Trump behind his back.
British tabloids proclaimed Trudeau’s gaffe to be a “diplomatic disaster.” Analysts and pundits in Canada speculated wildly that this will come back to bite us. In other words, this careless comment would anger the gods and bring down hellfire upon us.
If, as Trudeau alleged, Trump had arbitrarily extended a joint press conference longer than scheduled, then the U.S. president was being his usual boorish self. For Trudeau to mention this to peers at a reception seems a natural enough response.
There was nothing inherently insulting about the chatter and as for Trump shocking his staffers with surprising comments, well, this is something in which the U.S. president delights.
However, when asked about the Trudeau comment, Trump retorted, “Well, he’s two faced.” Although the U.S. president hastened to add that finds Trudeau “to be a nice guy” he was later caught on an open microphone bragging, “that was funny when I said that guy was two-faced.”
Trump also told reporters that he thought Trudeau’s comments may have been the result of him having publicly admonished the PM for failing to spend two per cent of our gross domestic product on defence.
This was after all a NATO summit, and back in 2014 the alliance had undertaken a collective agreement to target that magical two per cent of GDP on defence. In Trump’s mind any NATO member not spending that much is seen as delinquent and he conceded that Canada was only “slightly delinquent.”
However, Trump has also threatened to start punishing those delinquent countries with trade tariffs until such time as they start paying their due.
The problem with this logic is that not all GDPs are created equal, and there are no guidelines linked to a definitive combat capability generated as a result of those expenditures.
To meet the two per cent threshold Canada would need to spend $11 billion more per year on defence. In theory we could simply double the salaries of our military personnel, not add a single gun or bullet to our inventory and we could thus meet that magic percentage.
Turkey spends about two-thirds of what Canada spends in terms of real dollars on defence, but they do meet the two per cent marker due to their much smaller GDP. They also have a much larger armed forces as they rely upon conscription.
For about $14 billion, the Turks can field 355,000 regular forces personnel and 378,700 reservists. That is a lot of bang for the buck.
Bulgaria on the other hand has a tiny military and a minuscule GDP. As a result of them buying just 8 F-16 fighter jets, Bulgaria’s defence budget soared to a whopping 3.2 per cent of GDP, second only in the NATO alliance to the USA itself.
It is also pointless if a NATO member spends the requisite two per cent and maintains an effective military capability, but never deploys their forces into harm’s way.
As Trudeau pointed out to Trump during their discussion at the NATO summit, Canada has consistently been at the forefront of supporting the alliance. Canada currently has a lead role in the NATO Iraq training mission and the battle group deployed to Latvia.
If that makes us ‘slightly delinquent’ then so be it.
