Prime Minister says Canada’s mines to help pay $110 billion NATO bill

Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada can meet a steep expected increase in its North Atlantic Treaty Organization obligations spending partly by leaning on the country’s bounty of critical minerals.

The 32-member military alliance is meeting in The Hague and discussing a new total spending target of 5% of gross domestic product — 3.5% in core defense funding and 1.5% in related investments including infrastructure.

Leaders are “likely to all agree tomorrow” about the new headline figure, and they are “likely to agree” about the core defense aspect rising over 10 years, Carney said in an interview on CNN Tuesday.

For Canada that 5% comes out to about C$150 billion ($109 billion), he said, before clarifying “a little less than a third of that overall number is spending on things that quite frankly we’re already doing to build the resilience of our economy.”

Some of the spending on extracting, processing and exporting Canada’s critical minerals in partnerships with allies “counts towards that 5% — in fact, a lot of it will count towards that 5%, because it’s infrastructure spending,” he said, such as ports, railroads and “other ways to get these minerals out.”

If Carney hits his surprise pledge from June 9 to meet the old NATO target — 2% of GDP — this fiscal year, which isn’t guaranteed, that still leaves an enormous 75% uplift in core military spending.

Echoing remarks from his foreign minister earlier in the day, he said “we’re going to do a review in four or five years” on the plan, because “the nature of warfare is changing very rapidly,” according to a transcript of the interview shared by Carney’s office, some of which was cut before its broadcast.

“You don’t need an aircraft carrier any more — well, some do, but most of us don’t,” but rather drones, integrated with cybersecurity and satellites, he said.

At a dinner welcoming the NATO leaders and other guests, Secretary General Mark Rutte said, “For decades, the United States sought to get Europe to truly step up. Now European allies and Canada will equalize their defense spending.”

In the CNN interview, Carney also spoke about his conversations with US President Donald Trump as they aim to reach a trade deal within about three weeks. Asked if Trump was still saying he wants to “annex” Canada, Carney said he was not.

“He admires Canada, I think it’s fair to say, and maybe for a period of time coveted Canada,” he said. “We’re two sovereign nations who are discussing the future of our trade relationships, our defense partnership, which has been very strong in the past; how is that going to evolve?”

(By Thomas Seal)