TARIFF DEFENSE 2.0 — While Ottawa scrambles to sell Trumpland on its plans for a beefed-up border, it can be easy to forget the new president also wants Canada to boost its defense spending. White House press secretary KAROLINE LEAVITT reminded NATO members this week that 5 percent of GDP is the latest target Trump has in mind. “We have a good plan when it comes to investing in defense,” Joly said Wednesday evening. “But I think we need to do more, and we need to do more, quicker.” — Reminder: Defense Minister BILL BLAIR recently alluded to a 2027 timeline to hit NATO's 2 percent benchmark as "absolutely achievable." For a couple of decades, both Republican and Democratic presidents have been asking Canada for more. Trump really seems to mean it. Is it too late to act? Playbook put the question to three experts and observers: → ROB HUEBERT, a political scientist at the University of Calgary with expertise in international security. → JAMES CARAFANO, the leading expert on defense and foreign policy with The Heritage Foundation. → ANDREW LESLIE, the retired lieutenant general who commanded the Canadian army in Afghanistan before becoming a Liberal MP and parliamentary secretary on Canada-U.S. relations. Some notes from those conversations: → The social safety net myth: There is the time-honored notion that Canada can’t pump billions into defense without eating into spending on other priorities. Huebert says that was debunked by the two-month GST/HST holiday rebate by Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU, the "gimmick" that helped spark the resignation of CHRYSTIA FREELAND as Canada’s deputy PM and finance minister. “The government had the political will and was willing to spend that type of money in that short of a time,” Huebert said. Ottawa faces tough spending choices at a time when provinces are dealing with stressed and stretched health care. There’s also the rising cost of living and a housing shortage. Still, Huebert says, Canada must show the Americans "we are not a weak link." → The Arctic awaits: Canada is under increasing pressure to protect its sovereignty in the North. Melting sea ice is opening the region to increased shipping traffic. Russia and China have designs on it, too. Canada could easily reach a 2 percent spending target, says Carafano, by increasing spending on infrastructure and space-based surveillance, which the U.S. would find helpful. Yukon Premier RANJ PILLAI is a booster of this kind of thinking. That would mean more to the U.S. than supplying military hardware to NATO’s efforts in eastern Europe to help Ukraine, Carafano argued. "That would be a really, really welcome and refreshing thing in the U.S.," Carafano added. "You’re not going to two percent just because Donald Trump is beating you up, or because we need another Canadian flag in Europe, but because it’s something that actually is really important and valuable to Canada." — For your radar: Joly said Wednesday that as much as Canada values its U.S. partnership in the Arctic, Canada’s policy is shifting to embrace NATO’s new Nordic allies in the North: Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Norway. “For a long, long time, the Arctic was seen as high-north, low-tension,” Joly said. “But at this point we know that things have changed, geopolitics have shifted, and therefore, we need closer cooperation amongst NATO allies in the Arctic.” → We've heard it before: As an MP, Leslie was in the House of Commons for former President BARACK OBAMA’s 2016 speech about the world needing more Canada. Obama earned a standing ovation, even as he went on to say Canada needed to spend more on defense. "But he was Obama, so he was polite and respectful," Leslie said. Now, he noted, Canada is dealing with "a different type of personality." | 
