When Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, the U.S. was experiencing booming growth, a strong job market, low inflation and the foundations for future manufacturing expansion.
Post-pandemic problems lingered, such as housing costs and the cost of living, but this was not the Weimar Republic in 1933 Germany, where one in three workers was unemployed.
Yet, Americans voted in large numbers for a president who promised to overhaul the bureaucracy and make it more aligned with his political interests.
By weaponizing the Department of Justice (such as by lifting the indictment on New York Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for him backing Trump’s immigration program) and firing senior military commanders who may not have agreed with the president’s agenda, the president is turning the United States from a democracy into a Russian-style oligarchy. The checks and balances on executive power are being whittled away, with the intent they will eventually be too weak to resist.
In Trump’s own words, a man who saves his nation violates no law. Or as MAGA influencer Jack Posobiec put it at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference in Washington this past weekend, Trump is the “living embodiment of the Constitution.”
Confirmation that “l’état, c’est Trump” came on Monday, as the U.S. voted alongside Russia against a Ukrainian amendment at the United Nations that called for Russia to withdraw its troops. The U.S. is now actively supporting Russia’s occupation of Ukraine.
This is, or should be, an alarming state of affairs for America’s allies. Germany’s new chancellor-designate, Friedrich Merz, wasted no time in making clear his top priority in the coming days: independence from the United States.
He said America under Trump has proven itself indifferent to Europe’s fate and he demanded that European countries boost their own defence spending in short order. Tension over peace in Europe was at the top of voters’ concerns in Germany’s election on Sunday, along with migration and the economy.
We are seeing similar shifts in Canada, where dealing with Trump’s administration has come from nowhere to become the second most important issue facing Canadians.
No wonder that Trudeau was obliged to commit to more financial support and 25 light armoured vehicles: We have nothing more offensive to offer
But that sense of urgency has not yet penetrated the bubble of paralysis that shrouds official Ottawa.
More than two years after then chief of the defence staff, Wayne Eyre, urged defence companies to shift to a war-footing by ramping up production — and on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — the Canadian government has yet to make any significant move toward modern artillery ammunition production.
Sources suggest that discussions with the government’s main supplier, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (GDOTS), are stalled because Ottawa is insisting that industry pays for up to 25 per cent of a new production line, the total cost of which would be around $600 million.
This from a government that cheerily allocated $4 billion to high-speed rail last week.
Companies that provide ammunition under the federal Munitions Supply Program are said to be “exasperated” at the government’s failure to provide a vision for sovereign weapon and ammunition production by coming up with a long-term plan that would allow them to ramp up production.
That uncertainty stands in stark contrast to the experience of Ontario-based IMT Precision, which opened a U.S.-funded facility last fall, after the Americans said “get started and the contract will follow.”
After the Ukraine invasion, the Americans recognized that ammunition production is a national vulnerability and set about doubling production, with a further doubling expected by the end of this year.
By comparison, Ottawa is moving with the alacrity of Flash, the bureaucratic sloth in the movie Zootopia.
The Canadian government has provided $4.4 million to GDOTS and IMT to come up with a plan to increase production. But the long-term contracts the industry needs have not been forthcoming.
Bill Blair, the defence minister, has said Canada needs to “substantially increase” production and the 2024 federal budget allocated $1.8 billion over five years to build up a strategic reserve of ammunition. But this year there is just $137 million earmarked from that pot. A request for proposals to establish a domestic manufacturing capacity for artillery fuzes was issued last year but first delivery is not expected until 2027.
No wonder that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is in Ukraine to mark the third anniversary, was obliged to commit to more financial support and 25 light armoured vehicles: We have nothing more offensive to offer.
We still have no anti-tank capability for our troops in Latvia. We have not replaced the artillery or tanks we gave to Ukraine.
And as Eyre warned in his abortive wake-up call in 2022, Canada would only have a few days of supply of artillery shells, if forced to fire its big guns at the same rate as Ukraine.
God forbid we ever have an urgent need for ammunition to defend ourselves closer to home.
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