WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is pausing its participation in a joint panel with Canada on continental defense that dates back to World War II, the Pentagon announced Monday, accusing Canada of “failing to make credible progress on its defense commitments.”
President Donald Trump has long accused Canada and other NATO countries of spending too little on their own armed forces, arguing that the United States is shouldering too much of the defense burden. Tensions with Canada also simmered over tariffs, an expiring North American trade deal and a feud between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
“We can no longer avoid the gaps between rhetoric and reality,” said Elbridge Colby, an undersecretary of defense at the Defense Department, highlighting the pause in a series of posts
Colby mentioned in his contributions the increase in defense spending that Canada and other nations agreed to at a summit in 2025. He said the U.S. would consider how the Permanent Joint Defense Committee, made up of military and civilian officials from both countries, “benefits the common North American defense.”
European allies and Canada have invested heavily in their armed forces since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. And NATO countries, including Canada, committed last year to spending 5% of their gross domestic product on defense by 2035.
Carney said last year that the Canadian government would meet the previous 2 percent target this year.
The Pentagon said it had nothing further to say beyond Colby’s contributions to X. Carney’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the Pentagon’s announcement.
The announcement reflects a weakening of U.S. relations with traditional Western allies during Trump’s second term. Last week, the Pentagon decided to withdraw thousands of American troops in Europe by canceling deployments in Poland and Germany after Trump criticized NATO members for a lack of support for the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran.
Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska criticized the Pentagon’s decision on Monday, saying in a post on X: “Maintaining a close alliance with our neighbor requires cooler and wiser heads.”
“It all started with the taunting of ‘Canada will be the 51st state’ and ‘its prime minister will be the 51st governor,'” said Bacon, who is not running for re-election. “The insults have brought us nothing but hostility, which has cost us economically and now militarily.”
According to the Congressional Research Service, the board was founded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Mackenzie King in 1940, a year before the U.S. entered World War II.
According to the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government at St. Francis
The board advised on the implementation of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The joint command was established by the two countries in the 1950s to detect potential enemy attacks as tensions with the Soviet Union rose and fears of nuclear war grew.
The panel also helped build early warning systems using radar stations, according to the Mulroney Institute, and advised on the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Great Lakes.