Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is keeping a close eye on strained relations between Canada and the United States during a series of high-level political and economic meetings ahead of a NATO summit in Washington.
President Trump met on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning with a bipartisan group of senators, including Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.
This followed a meeting on Monday with Joshua Bolten, chief executive of the influential US Business Roundtable.
In May, a group of 23 U.S. senators, both Democratic and Republican, signed a letter to Trudeau urging the Liberal government to increase defense spending to the 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) threshold agreed to by NATO allies in 2023.
The letter was an unusual move to bypass the Biden administration, which has generally taken a cautious stance on the issue of Canadian defence spending.
Heading into his meeting with U.S. senators on Tuesday, Trudeau only fielded questions from reporters about President Joe Biden’s health, which he dodged.
Canada’s ambassador to the United States, Kirsten Hillman, said she had not yet met with the senators who signed the letter but had been in contact with some of them through a bipartisan committee of U.S. lawmakers that deals with U.S.-Canada relations.
Recent elections in the UK and Europe, and the upcoming US elections, are among the issues expected to dominate the agenda at the 75th NATO Summit. Another is defence spending, including Canada’s failure to meet its 2% spending target.
She said security talks with the US were not just about NATO’s 2% threshold.
“These are not straightforward conversations, they are complex,” Hillman told reporters in Canada. “These are serious conversations and our conversations are being taken very seriously.”
The meeting with the Business Roundtable was significant because Canada’s top business leaders wrote to Trudeau last month warning that Canada faces diplomatic and economic isolation if it does not present NATO with a clear, verifiable plan for meeting its spending targets.
Mr. Bolten, who served as White House chief of staff under President George W. Bush, struck a firm but conciliatory tone on behalf of the business council on Monday.
“We face common challenges not just in the security environment but in the economic environment, and you’re here to discuss this with other NATO leaders,” Bolten said, “and the United States has no closer economic partner than Canada in facing those challenges.”
In a release following the meeting, the Prime Minister’s Office said Trudeau and Bolten stressed the importance of safe and resilient supply chains to keep Canada and the United States’ industrial bases strong.