Politics
Trump wants NATO to spend 5% on defence. What do Canada party leaders say? – National TenX News
Federal party leaders and candidates in the upcoming election say they are committed to getting Canada to meet NATO’s current defence spending target but are resisting the Trump administration’s call on allies to more than double that commitment.
U.S. President Donald Trump has said he wants NATO members to spend at least five per cent of their GDP on defence, which U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeated Friday at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.
“I’m not saying overnight,” he told reporters, but “we think that’s what NATO allies need to be spending for NATO to face the threats that itself has identified and articulated.”
“We are as involved in NATO today as we have ever been, and we intend to continue to be. But it has to be a real alliance. And that means that our alliance partners have to increase their own capabilities,” he said.
Asked whether that the U.S. would also match the five per cent target, Rubio said: “Sure. We’re heading there now.”
According to NATO figures, the U.S. was projected to have spent 3.38 per cent of GDP on its military last year, the only ally whose spending has dropped over the last decade.
Trump’s calls have increased pressure on Canada, which is among eight out of 32 NATO members that currently fall short of the two per cent target. It spent 1.37 per cent last year.
Canada’s defence spending is one of several grievances Trump has cited in his calls to make the country a U.S. state — an idea he floated even in front of NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in an Oval Office meeting last month.
The White House has called on all NATO allies to hit two per cent by June, when NATO leaders are set to gather for their annual summit, along with commitments to further ratchet up spending after that.
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly, who’s running for re-election as the Liberal candidate in the Montreal-area riding of Ahuntsic-Cartierville, told reporters in Brussels that Canada is committed to boosting its defence spending.
Yet she added NATO must be aligned in confronting Russia — an apparent reference to Trump’s readiness to strike closer ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid NATO’s ongoing support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.
“It is important that we all agree that Russia is a threat. If not, I don’t know why we should always increase more and more defence spending,” Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
“We all know that we’re living much more in a dangerous world, and in that sense we need to do more. Canada is willing to do more, and we have to do more faster.”
Here’s what federal party leaders have said about boosting Canada’s defence spending and meeting its NATO commitments as Trump’s threats dominate the campaign.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney said shortly after he called the election that a Liberal government would meet the two per cent target before 2030.
Carney has promised to modernize the recruitment process for the Canadian Armed Forces and address a shortage of over 14,000 CAF members. He said he will do that by increasing salaries an unspecified amount, building more on-base housing and improving health and child-care services.
He has also vowed to modernize and accelerate military procurement and prioritize Canadian manufacturing for equipment.
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Those investments will be prioritized toward Arctic security and NORAD modernization.
“We will deliver an unprecedented acceleration of investment in our Armed Forces so that we can defend every inch of our sovereign territory while helping to support and defend our allies abroad,” he said at a defence platform announcement in Halifax on March 25.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said a government led by him would ensure Canada meets the two per cent target, but has not set a timeline for when that will happen.
He says the Conservatives would use extra revenues earned through an expanded trade deal with the U.S., negotiated in response to Trump’s tariffs on Canada, to invest in the CAF. Cuts to foreign aid and the public service “bureaucracy” will further free up frontline defence funding, he has said.
“We will hit our two per cent, we will take back control of our Arctic waters from the Chinese and the Russians, we will rebuild our military and become a truly sovereign nation with a strong Armed Forces that can protect us,” Poilievre said at an event in Toronto on April 2.
“We will not do this to please President Trump. We will do it because it is right for Canada, especially in light of America’s growing ambivalence towards NATO. … Canada will carry its own weight.”
Asked Friday about the Trump administration’s call for a five per cent spending commitment, Poilievre told reporters in Trois-Riviere, Que., that “we are going to make our own decisions on exactly how much we spend.”
Before the election was called, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said his government would commit to meeting the two per cent target by 2032.
Singh said at an event in Iqaluit on March 16 that the NDP would do that by building 5,000 new affordable homes to end the military housing shortage, raise military wages and prioritize purchasing Canadian-built military equipment.
He added Arctic defence investments must be coupled with investments in northern communities, including infrastructure.
“We cannot separate the two,” he told reporters. “So we have to find the investments to build up the North to be able to defend it, but also to support the communities. We believe those two are deeply connected, and we will find the ways to make those investments.
Singh has not addressed the NDP’s defence platform on the campaign trail so far.
An NDP campaign official speaking on background told Global News that Canada is “not going to do something just because Donald Trump tells us to” when asked about further boosting defence spending to five per cent.
The NDP would look at how to increase that spending in a way that is best for Canadians and is economically feasible, the official said.
The Bloc Quebecois platform calls for Canada to hit the two per cent spending target by the end of this decade, primarily through boosting defence investment in Quebec.
The Green Party’s “Protecting Canada” section of their platform makes one mention of NATO. It says the party wants to “create a common diplomatic and economic front — an economic NATO of sorts — with other like-minded democracies.”
The goal is “to establish red lines and put the U.S. administration and key U.S. economic actors on notice about joint retaliatory economic measures against the U.S. to any further encroachments on the sovereignty of any member of the economic bloc.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced in February his government would increase defence spending from 2.33 per cent of GDP last year to 2.5 per cent by 2027.
France has set itself an “objective” of between three per cent and 3.5 per cent, “which is about the level of American defence spending,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told reporters in Brussels on Friday. France was estimated to be spending just over two per cent last year.
The top defence spender in the NATO alliance last year, Poland, allocated 4.12 per cent of its GDP for military spending in 2024.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said NATO members are working on setting a new spending target, to be announced at the next summit in June.
“Just as it’s important to spend more, it’s also important to spend more smartly,” he said, calling Trump’s call for a five per cent target “a very high ambition.”
— With files from the Associated Press
Politics
UK refuses to invite Israeli government officials to London arms fair over the war in Gaza – National TenX News
The U.K. has barred Israeli government officials from attending the country’s biggest arms fair over growing concern about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The decision does not cover representatives of Israeli defense contractors, who will be allowed to attend the DSEI UK exhibition, scheduled for Sept. 9-12 in London. The event was formerly known as Defense and Security Equipment International.
“The Israeli Government’s decision to further escalate its military operation in Gaza is wrong,” the British government said in a statement. “As a result, we can confirm that no Israeli government delegation will be invited to attend DSEI UK 2025.”
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The decision comes after Prime Minister Keir Starmer in July announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state unless Israel takes steps to end the crisis in Gaza, agrees to a ceasefire with Hamas and commits to a long-term peace agreement. Britain previously barred sales to Israel of any arms that could be used in the nearly 23-month war in Gaza.
Israel’s Defense Ministry said the decision was based on politics and “serves extremists.”
“These restrictions amount to a deliberate and regrettable act of discrimination against Israel’s representatives,” the ministry said.
The Israeli ministry said it would withdraw from the exhibition and will not establish a national pavilion.
Pro-Palestinian and anti-war groups have announced plans to for protests during DSEI, which will take place at the Excel center in east London.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
Politics
Israel soon will halt or slow aid to northern Gaza as military offensive grows – National TenX News
Israel will soon halt or slow humanitarian aid into parts of northern Gaza as it expands its military offensive against Hamas, an official said Saturday, a day after Gaza City was declared a combat zone.
The decision was likely to bring more condemnation of Israel’s government as frustration grows in the country and abroad over dire conditions for both Palestinians and remaining hostages in Gaza after nearly 23 months of war.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, told The Associated Press that Israel will stop airdrops over Gaza City in the coming days and reduce the number of aid trucks arriving in the north as it prepares to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people south.
Israel on Friday ended recently imposed daytime pauses in fighting to allow aid delivery, describing Gaza City as a Hamas stronghold and alleging that a tunnel network remains in use, despite previous large-scale raids. The United Nations and partners have said the pauses, airdrops and other measures fell far short of the 600 trucks of aid needed daily in Gaza.
A ‘massive population movement’ coming
AP video footage showed several large explosions across Gaza overnight. Israel’s military Saturday evening said it had struck a key Hamas member in the area of Gaza City, with no details.
In recent days, Israel’s military has increased strikes on the outskirts of Gaza City, where famine was recently documented and declared by global food security experts.
By Saturday there had been no airdrops for several days across Gaza, a break from almost daily ones. Israel’s army didn’t respond to a request for comment or say how it would provide aid to Palestinians during another major shift in Gaza’s population of over 2 million people.
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“Such an evacuation would trigger a massive population movement that no area in the Gaza Strip can absorb, given the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and the extreme shortages of food, water, shelter and medical care,” Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement.
It’s impossible that a mass evacuation of Gaza City can be done in a safe and dignified way, she said.
Hundreds of residents have begun leaving Gaza City, piling their remaining possessions onto pickup trucks or donkey carts. Many have been forced to leave their homes more than once.
Killed while seeking food
Israeli gunfire killed four people trying to get aid in central Gaza, according to health officials at Al-Awda Hospital, were the bodies were taken.
An Israeli strike on a bakery in Gaza City’s Nasr neighborhood killed 12 people including six women and three children, the Shifa Hospital director told the AP, and a strike on the Rimal neighborhood killed seven.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said another 10 people died as a result of starvation and malnutrition over the past 24 hours, including three children. It said at least 332 Palestinians have died from malnutrition-related causes during the war, including 124 children.
At least 63,371 Palestinians have died in Gaza during the war, said the ministry, which does not say how many are fighters or civilians but says around half have been women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.
“There is no food and even water is not available. When it is available, it is not safe to drink,” said Amer Zayed, as he waited for food from a charity kitchen in Deir al-Balah on Friday.
“The suffering gets worse when there are more displaced people,” he added.
Israelis rally again to demand a ceasefire deal
Israelis waited to hear the identity of the remains of a hostage that Israel on Friday said had been recovered in Gaza. It also said it recovered the remains of hostage Ilan Weiss.
Forty-eight hostages now remain in Gaza of the over 250 seized in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war. Israel had believed 20 are still alive.
Their loved ones fear the expanding military offensive will put them in even more danger, and they were rallying again Saturday to demand a ceasefire deal to bring everyone home.
“Netanyahu, if another living hostage comes back in a bag, it will not only be the hostages and their families who pay the price. You will bear responsibility for premeditated murder,” Zahiro Shahar Mor, nephew of hostage Avraham Munder, said in Tel Aviv.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
The Trump administration said Friday it was denying and revoking U.S. visas from members of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
That comes ahead of next month’s United Nations General Assembly, where Canada and several other countries have said they intend to officially recognize a Palestinian state.
The U.S. State Department cited the groups’ efforts to secure statehood recognition at the UN, along with their appeals to the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice to investigate alleged Israeli crimes in Gaza, as reasons for the decision by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“Both steps materially contributed to Hamas’s refusal to release its hostages, and to the breakdown of the Gaza ceasefire talks,” the department said in a statement.
“The Trump Administration has been clear: it is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace.”
The statement did not name the officials being denied entry. It was not immediately clear if the list included Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who was expected to travel to New York for the UN gathering.
The Palestinians’ ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, told reporters at the UN headquarters that they were checking exactly what the U.S. move means “and how it applies to any of our delegation, and we will respond accordingly.”
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Representatives assigned to the Palestinian Authority mission at the UN, led by Mansour, will be granted waivers so they can continue their New York-based operations, the U.S. statement said.
Mansour said Abbas still intends to lead the delegation to the high-level meetings and is expected to address the General Assembly — as he has done for many years — and to attend a meeting on the afternoon of Sept. 22 on a two-state solution co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia.
U.S. President Donald Trump will travel to New York and address the general assembly on Sept. 23, the White House said on Thursday.
Canada, Britain, Australia and France in recent weeks have announced or signalled their intention to recognize a Palestinian state during the meeting.
The countries have said their recognition is conditional on the Palestinian Authority — which has limited self-rule over parts of the occupied West Bank and has for years been positioning itself as a legitimate government alternative to Hamas in Gaza — undergoing reforms and new elections.
Abbas has signalled he will co-operate with the Western nations’ demands.
The Palestinian Liberation Organization is an internationally recognized coalition that represents Palestinian people in its occupied territories and abroad.
The Trump administration has staunchly backed Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. The U.S. has also refused to condemn expanded Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Canada and other allies have said undermine two-state solution efforts.
Rubio hosted Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar in Washington on Wednesday “to reaffirm our two nations’ close cooperation,” the U.S. secretary said in a post on X.
Saar, asked after the meeting what the plan was for a Palestinian state, said there would not be any.
The Israeli minister on Friday thanked Rubio for holding the PA and PLO “accountable for rewarding terrorism, incitement and efforts to use legal warfare against Israel” in a social media statement.
Officials with the Palestinian Authority reject that they’ve undermined peace prospects.
Under the 1947 UN “headquarters agreement,” the U.S. is generally required to allow access for foreign diplomats to the UN in New York. But Washington has said it can deny visas for security, terrorism and foreign policy reasons.
Hamas earlier this month said it had accepted a U.S.-backed proposal on a ceasefire in Gaza that would see the release of some hostages in exchange for talks with Israel that would end the conflict and see the return of all remaining hostages.
But Israel has said it will only accept the full return of all the hostages and has pressed ahead with a plan to occupy Gaza City, which international monitors like the UN have warned could worsen a famine already afflicting the Palestinian territory.
Rubio last week announced sanctions against multiple International Criminal Court judges and prosecutors involved in the court’s investigation into Israel’s actions in Gaza and the issuing of arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
—With files from Reuters
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
UK refuses to invite Israeli government officials to London arms fair over the war in Gaza – National TenX News
Israel soon will halt or slow aid to northern Gaza as military offensive grows – National TenX News
U.S. scraps Palestinian officials’ visas ahead of UN General Assembly – National TenX News
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