Carney casts himself as NATO defender amid Trump beef, despite Canada missing key benchmark for decades
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney defended his country's NATO commitments after being pressed over alliance spending by President Donald Trump, insisting Ottawa meets the benchmark – even though Canada only...
By Fox News · Fox News
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney defended his country's NATO commitments after being pressed over alliance spending by President Donald Trump , insisting Ottawa meets the benchmark – even though Canada only reached the 2% defense target in 2025. Speaking recently at a press conference in Monteregie, Quebec, Carney said Iran remains a "grave threat" to the Middle East and beyond and argued Canada is meeting its obligations to the alliance. But Canada only reached NATO’s 2% defense spending benchmark in 2025, after spending years well below the target. Carney acknowledged Ottawa had not hit that mark since the Cold War, underscoring the vulnerability in his pushback to Trump. "I’ll underscore that just a few weeks ago that we've met for the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall our NATO commitments in terms of 2% defense spending," Carney added. ECONOMIST EDITOR SAYS EUROPEAN LEADERS NOW FEAR A TRUE NATO 'DIVORCE' AFTER TRUMP PULLOUT THREAT Trump has blasted some NATO allies over what he sees as weak support during the Iran conflict, warning on Truth Social that the alliance "wasn’t there when we needed them and they won’t be there if we need them again." When a reporter pressed that Trump threatened to punish NATO, including conflict-averse members Germany and Spain, Carney boasted that Canada "meet[s] its NATO commitments." NATO’s 2014-2025 defense expenditure report estimated Canada’s defense spending at 1.01% of GDP in 2014, and below 1.5% through 2024 before reaching 2.01% in 2025. NATO CHIEF SAYS WORLD IS ‘ABSOLUTELY’ SAFER UNDER TRUMP Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has praised Trump for pushing allies to meet the 2% benchmark, as several Eastern Bloc nations have noticeably increased their tithes. Over the past decade, U.S. defense spending has averaged roughly 3.3% of GDP, compared with about 1.3% for Canada. The U.S. GDP is also a higher gross figure than all other NATO members in dollars. MORE KEY US ALLIES BLOCK MILITARY FLIGHTS AS…