Canada announced a multi-billion-dollar plan to build new military bases in the Arctic following threats from President Donald Trump to make it America’s 51st state, and his desire to take control of Greenland.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government plans to spend C$32 billion (about $24 billion U.S.) on opening the bases in Yellowknife, Inuvik, Iqaluit and Goose Bay, located in the north of the country.
“In this new era, we cannot rely on other nations for our security and prosperity,” Carney said Thursday, speaking from an airplane hangar in Yellowknife, flanked by his officials and Canadian troops.
“With this plan, we are taking control of our future. We will no longer rely on others to defend our Arctic security or to fuel our economy,” Carney said. “We are taking full responsibility for defending our sovereignty.”
Increasing international tensions, global warming and the changing world economy have put the Arctic at the heart of the debate over global trade and security.
The display of military force follows threats from Trump in January to annex Canada and take over the Danish territory of Greenland for national security purposes — a move that triggered panic and alarm among European leaders.
Experts said Carney’s announcement was also sending a message to Trump.
“The primary purpose of all this spending is to show Donald Trump that Canada can take care of security in its own Arctic, so that the U.S. doesn’t need to,” Michael Byers, an academic in Arctic sovereignty and Canadian defense policy at the University of British Columbia, told The New York Times.
“In other circumstances, permanently stationing more than a few hundred troops in the Canadian Arctic would not make sense,” Byers said. “It’s too vast, cold, and sparsely populated.”
Early in Trump’s second term, he said Canada “should be the 51st state.” Those remarks were reiterated at the World Economic Forum in January this year, where he said that “Canada lives because of the United States.”
Carney pushed back with a video message, where he asserted that “Canada thrives because we are Canadian.”
“This is our country. This is our future. The choice is ours,” he said.
Trump’s rhetoric toward Canada, coupled with his tariff trade war, has prompted America’s neighbors to boycott American products, and the number of Canadians traveling to the U.S. has dropped.
Meanwhile, Trump backed off his aspirations to assert U.S. control over fellow Arctic nation Greenland following enormous resistance from European leaders, and eventually said a “framework of a future deal” had been agreed with NATO.
The matter resurfaced again late February when Trump announced that he wanted to send “a great hospital boat” to Greenland, though it was unclear why — Greenland provides free healthcare to its residents.
“That will be ‘no thanks’ from us,” Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said.
“President Trump’s idea to send a US hospital ship here to Greenland has been duly noted,” Neilsen said. “But we have a public health system where care is free for citizens.”
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