Trudeau heading out to NATO, G7 summits
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau heads to Europe this week for the NATO and G7 summits, where global leaders are trying to figure out exactly how the world works now that U.S. President Donald Trump is at the table.
The future of military alliances, the fight against climate change and even free trade all hang in the balance as the new man in the White House sits down and lets them all know his plans — or maybe not.
“Predicting what this president does would be virtually impossible,” said David Perry, a senior analyst with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, delivering a common answer to the question of what to expect this week.
“Fireworks would be the baseline expectation of some sort.”
On Thursday, Trump, in the midst of his first foreign trip as U.S. president, will sit down with Trudeau and other leaders at the NATO summit at the group’s new headquarters in Brussels.
Candidate Trump declared on the campaign trail that NATO had outlived its usefulness — a stance he reversed last month.
The ad hoc meeting was organized essentially to introduce the new U.S. president to the 28-nation military alliance and have Trump outline his vision for NATO’s future objectives.
Allen Sens, a political scientist at the University of British Columbia who focuses on international security, said the meeting comes at a time when the post-Second World War alliance was already dealing with competing interests that seem to be growing stronger.
The southern flank of NATO wants to focus on dealing with security in North Africa and the Middle East, and the related issue of migrants and refugees. Eastern European partners are more concerned with Russian aggression. There are also growing concerns around the relationship between Turkey and Russia and their roles in the Syrian conflict. Brexit, too, brings some uncertainty to the dynamics.
“It’s being pulled in various different directions, by often competing geopolitical forces, and at this very delicate moment, the United States — a key partner in the alliance — is led by the Trump administration with its established record of volatility, uncertainty and impulsiveness,” said Sens.
Meanwhile, the elephant outside the room is the explosive allegations and domestic U.S. investigations of close ties between the White House and Russia.
There are efforts underway to minimize the impact for some of that infamous Trump unpredictability, with foreign delegations at both the NATO and the G7 summits being advised it would be in their best interests if everyone kept presentations short and to the point.
Trump remains adamant that NATO members meet a 2014 agreement to spend at least two per cent of their gross domestic product on defence.
The issue of burden-sharing is expected to be a priority on the agenda at NATO. Last year, only five of the 28 allies met the spending target. The U.S. is one of them. Canada is not.
According to a NATO estimate released in March, Canada spent 1.02 per cent of its GDP on defence in 2016, which put it in a three-way tie for 20th place.
The Liberal government continues to argue that Canada’s contribution is more complicated to measure.
The Canadian military, for example, is about to send 450 troops as well as light armoured vehicles and other equipment to head up a NATO mission in Latvia, as part of efforts to curb Russian aggression in the region.