A high-ranking U.S. defence official says the Pentagon gave Ottawa a classified paper laying out priorities for a collective North American defence pact with Canada, but that Ottawa did not deliver a “credible” response.
That lack of response is just one of several irritants the senior Pentagon official said is creating a rift in North American defence co-operation. Canada’s delayed decision around the procurement of F-35 fighter jets was also cited as a source of frustration.
The official from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration briefed a small group of mostly Canadian journalists this week on background in order to speak more candidly about Canada-U.S. relations.
The official said Ottawa’s response to the classified paper was that Canada would try to align with the U.S. position on defence, but Trump administration officials are looking for a more substantial plan.
Defence Minister David McGuinty’s office did not respond to questions about whether it had received the classified paper, which outlines the Trump administration’s expectations around defence, or if Ottawa had responded.
McGuinty’s communications director Alice Hansen said Canada has made “historic investments in continental defence, Arctic security and military readiness.”
Canada spent $63.4 billion on national defence in 2025, meeting its NATO commitment to spend two per cent of gross domestic product on defence for the first time.
In an email, Hansen laid out a list of defence investments and said Canada would spend more than $82 billion over five years in Canadian Armed Forces capabilities.
NATO members met last year in The Hague and agreed to spend the equivalent of five per cent of GDP on defence by 2035.
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Hansen said Canada continues to accelerate its path to NATO’s new target of 3.5 per cent on core defence and is optimizing an additional 1.5 per cent of GDP spending on defence and security-related investments.
The Pentagon officials briefing journalists said Canada has not provided a credible plan for how it will meet the new defence-spending commitments.
Elbridge Colby, U.S. undersecretary of defence for policy, announced on Monday that his department was pausing the Permanent Joint Board on Defense “to reassess how this forum benefits shared North American defence.”
The board was established in 1940 and is an advisory forum for U.S.-Canada bilateral defence co-operation.
Pentagon officials said the United States laid out a message to Canada around what it expects based on collective defence requirements under Norad, Arctic security issues and NATO.
It was not clear how they see Canada playing a part in the Trump administration’s Golden Dome plans or what role that played in the discussions. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office last week said the complex multilayered missile defence shield could cost $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years.
When asked about Canada’s defence spending, the Pentagon officials said Canada might have a list of investments but if it doesn’t show how the country will contribute to North America’s defence, it’s not necessarily sufficient. They said the U.S. Department of Defense is looking for a more concrete plan.
Jamie Tronnes of the Center for North American Prosperity and Security, a project of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said the revelation about the classified document is “a prime example of how Canada and the United States continue to fail to communicate.”
“A classified wish list is seen by Canada as a request, but it is seen by the Pentagon as an order,” Tronnes said in an email to The Canadian Press Friday.
She said shared defence priorities must happen through joint discussion and assessment.
“The Canadians are getting to their NATO commitments, but it is true that Canada needs to do more on spending for meaningful defence capabilities that contribute to lethality, deterrence and the shared defence priorities of the continent,” Tronnes said.
The Pentagon’s move to pause the Permanent Joint Board on Defense and to criticize Canada’s defence spending is not happening in a vacuum. Experts have said it’s likely connected to the purchase of F-35 fighter jets and the upcoming review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, known as CUSMA.
The Liberal government has yet to reach a decision on its order of F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin. It has been the subject of a political review for more than a year.
The Pentagon officials criticized the fighter jet review Thursday, calling Canada’s approach dilatory.
The Trump administration is not the first to call out Ottawa on defence investments. Canada has long faced criticism about its lagging defence spending, but with U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House last year it was directly connected to larger trade issues.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has made historic defence investments — meeting the former NATO target for the first time — as Trump rattled the bilateral relationship with his massive tariff agenda and threats of annexation.
Carney has also faced criticism in Canada about the lack of transparency around defence spending moving forward. Former federal spending watchdog Kevin Page on Friday called for the prime minister to present a fiscal road map to meet the new NATO spending commitments.
Page, who was Canada’s first parliamentary budget officer and now heads the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy at the University of Ottawa, said Ottawa has been not fiscally transparent with its math. He said Canada must soon show how it plans to significantly ramp up defence spending through to 2035.
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