A Trump Effect: Canada’s Carney Turns Away From American Arms Purchases

Canada, the nation with the world’s largest coastline, is debating whether to buy a fleet of 12 submarines from Germany or from South Korea. Canada, a nation slightly larger than the United States, is debating whether to patrol its airspace with 72 Swedish-made Saab Gripen fighter jets, or to go ahead with an earlier plan to buy American-made Lockheed Martin F-35s. President Trump’s verbal gladiating with Canada, once America’s closest ally, is taking a toll in dollars and cents. Canada is moving away from American arms manufacturers, part of a wider move inside NATO to ‘Buy European.’ European manufacturers are expected to account for about 80 percent of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s five-year, $800 billion project to transform the Bundeswehr into “the strongest conventional army in Europe.”“The world has drastically changed and our main ally has become highly unpredictable,” the French minister for space, Philippe Baptiste, told reporters in Brussels Tuesday, referring to Mr. Trump’s policy zigzags. “It’s a radical change from the way we behave. We need to design European [satellite] constellations which means there is no American kill switch.” In Brussels, legislation is advancing to require that most defense purchases be ‘Made in Europe.’President Trump has been publicly goading Canada for the last year — evoking Canada’s future as “the 51st state;” referring to Prime Minister Mark Carney as a “governor,’” and posting AI-mockups of all of North America, including Canada and Greenland, painted with the stars and stripes.While some Americans brush off these jibes as lame jokes, they are received differently north of the 49th parallel. Air and road traffic from Canada to the United States fell by about one quarter last year compared to 2024. Rather than undergo American fingerprint and background checks, many Canadian vacationers are flying over Florida this winter, heading for Mexico or the Caribbean.For the first time since the War of 1812, Canadian defense forces are developing a strategy for combatting an American military invasion, according to a report last week in Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper. “According to two senior government officials, the scenario envisions the use of tactics similar to those employed by Afghan mujahideen against Soviet forces, and later against NATO forces in Afghanistan,” reports Canada’s newspaper of record. With an active-duty military only 5 percent as large as America’s, the Canadian Armed Forces would rely on “unconventional warfare,” including sabotage, ambushes and drone warfare, the newspaper reports.While such strategizing seems far-fetched, polls show that Canadians have soured on Washington. An international poll conducted last spring by the Pew Research Center found that 59 percent of Canadians deemed America to pose the greatest threat to their nation. Among the 24 nations surveyed, only in Mexico, at 68 percent, did more people see America as the greatest threat. Paradoxically, as a carryover of decades of good feelings, 55 percent of Canadians polled listed America as their greatest ally.Heightening Canadian insecurities, the Financial Times reported Thursday that State Department officials held three meetings last year with the Alberta Prosperity Project, a group that wants the energy-rich western province to secede from Canada. In February, the group wants to meet with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to ask for a $500 billion credit facility. Last week, Mr. Bessent told a radio station about Alberta: “I think we should let them come down into the U.S.”In response, Mr. Carney told reporters Thursday: “We expect the U.S. administration to respect Canadian sovereignty. I’m always clear in my conversations with President Trump to that effect.” David Eby, premier of neighboring British Columbia, said of the Albertans: “To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that. And that word is treason.”Yet in a mollifying note just one day later, Mr. Carney — who served successively as governor of the Bank of Canada, then governor of the Bank of England — praised in a post on X President Trump’s nomination of former Federal Reserve board member Kevin Warsh to serve as the American central bank’s next chairman.In a parliamentary democracy, insecurities translate into policy. One year ago, the purchase of American-made F-35s to replace Canada’s American-made CF-18 Hornets was a slam dunk. However, after a year of friction with the Trump administration, Ottawa’s purchase of 88 F-35s looks like a long shot.According to an Ekos survey released in December 2025, 43 percent of Canadians want Ottawa to acquire from Sweden a fleet of 72 Gripen fighters. Support for a mixed fleet of Gripens and F-35s had dwindled to 29 percent. Support for an all-American fleet was only 13 percent.Saab bolstered its pitch by saying its jets are designed for the Arctic and are capable of landing and taking off on ice. Saab promised to create thousands of jobs in Ontario and at Bombardier, the Montreal-based aircraft manufacturer. To appeal to a nation where Britain’s King Charles III is the nominal head of state, Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia led a high-level Saab delegation to Canada in November.In contrast to this silky approach, President Trump told Mr. Carney last week in Davos to watch his mouth. “Canada lives because of the United States,” Mr. Trump said, responding to the Canadian leader’s comment that there is a ‘rupture’ between the United States and its Western allies. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”Then, in a Truth Social post Thursday night, Mr. Trump said his administration is ‘decertifying’ a line of Bombardier business jets, alleging that Canada is blocking the certification of American-made Gulfstream jets.Objections immediately came from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents hundreds of thousands of aerospace, defense and other manufacturing workers in the U.S. and Canada.“Many IAM members work at companies that rely heavily on integrated supply chains between the U.S. and Canada,” the union’s international president, Brian Bryant, said. “Any attack on this partnership will result in job losses, increased prices, and a variety of other negative impacts.”The integration of the two nations’ aerospace industries was furthered by the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. This year, the successor pact negotiated during Mr. Trump’s first term, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, is up for review. However two weeks ago, on a visit to a Detroit car plant, Mr. Trump was dismissive: “There’s no real advantage to it, it’s irrelevant. Canada would love it. Canada wants it.”In an effort to lessen Canada’s overwhelming dependence on trade with America, Mr. Carney traveled to Beijing two weeks ago, the first visit by a Canadian prime minister in almost a decade. In March, he is to visit India. On Tuesday, Mr. Carney was asked in Parliament about the future of trade talks with America.He responded: “The world has changed, Washington has changed. There is almost nothing normal now in the United States — that is the truth.”

A Trump Effect: Canada’s Carney Turns Away From American Arms Purchases

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