The Pentagon has announced that it is suspending its participation in a joint defense council created with Canada in 1940, against a backdrop of tensions around Canadian military spending and the F-35 combat aircraft program. Washington particularly criticizes Ottawa for its hesitations on the purchase of American aircraft and considers its military commitment insufficient.
New moment of tension between the United States and Canada. This Thursday, May 21, the Pentagon announced the suspension of its participation in the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, the joint defense advisory body created in 1940 between Washington and Ottawa. A decision which directly targets Canada, accused by the United States of dragging its feet on its military commitments, starting with the purchase of 88 F-35A fighters from Lockheed Martin, reports Aérotime.
“Canada has not yet made the difficult decisions necessary to become a credible partner in the mutual defense of our continent,” a Pentagon official told the press on May 21. Washington particularly criticizes Ottawa for the slowness and lack of transparency surrounding the review of its F-35 order, launched in 2025 by Prime Minister Mark Carney in a context of commercial and political tensions with Donald Trump.
The contract, signed in 2023 for around 13.9 billion US dollars, covers 88 F-35As. Canada has already started paying for the first 16 aircraft and some equipment needed for 14 others. But Ottawa is now considering reducing its order and also purchasing Gripens from the Swedish manufacturer Saab in order to diversify its suppliers and reduce costs.
American pressure on military spending
Beyond the F-35s, the Pentagon is pushing Canada so that the country increases its military spending as it has previously done with the countries of the European Union. Washington wants its neighbor to increase its defense spending from 2% to 3.5% of GDP by 2035. Ottawa is putting forward an $87 billion plan over twenty years to modernize the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and strengthen security in the Arctic.
Mark Carney, however, put the scope of the American gesture into perspective. “I wouldn’t overestimate the importance of that. We have many aspects of very close defense cooperation with the United States,” he said on May 19.
