YEREVAN: European leaders and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gather in Armenia on Monday as they seek to navigate a fraught geopolitical environment under an unpredictable White House. US President Donald Trump will loom large over the meeting of the European Political Community (EPC). It takes place in Yerevan, a crossroads between Russia and the Middle East &mdash; the two main issues on the agenda. &quot;Leaders from across the continent, with Canada as a guest, will discuss how to cooperate to strengthen security and collective resilience,&quot; European Council President Antonio Costa wrote on social media as he arrived in the Armenian capital Sunday. The Iran war, which has rattled the global economy by sending energy prices soaring, has deepened a rift in transatlantic ties. Following a spat between Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who had criticized Washington&#39;s handling of the conflict, the United States announced it would withdraw 5,000 US troops from Germany. That has added to the doubts surrounding the US commitment to defend its European allies as Russian President Vladimir Putin&#39;s war in Ukraine grinds into a fifth year. Ukraine&#39;s President Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO chief Mark Rutte will be present in Yerevan, while Merz will be represented by France&#39;s Emmanuel Macron. They will be joined by Canada&#39;s Carney &mdash; the first-ever non-European leader to join the EPC talks, in a sign of the ever-closer ties between Ottawa and Europe, ushered in by Trump. The summit, &quot;in a nutshell, will be an opportunity to emphasize that Europe&#39;s security is a 360-degree challenge,&quot; said a senior EU official. Like Europe, Canada&#39;s economy has been hurt by Trump&#39;s tariffs &mdash; but Carney has remained defiant, emerging as something of a figurehead for countries looking to stand up to the Republican president. In a stirring speech earlier this year, he urged middle powers to join forces in the face of a new global reality defined by great power competition and a &quot;fading&quot; rules‑based order. &quot;The EPC was initially perceived as an anti-Putin club,&quot; said Sebastien Maillard, a special adviser at the Jacques Delors Institute, a think tank. &quot;With the invitation to Canada, this initiative &mdash; which was initially driven by geography &mdash; is now taking on an anti-Trump slant.&quot; Moving to diversify away from its southern neighbor, Ottawa has joined the EU&#39;s defense financing scheme &mdash; the first non-European country to do so &mdash; and sought to increase cooperation on trade. &quot;Canada has a way of looking at the world and looking at ways to solve the challenges we have currently that Europe shares to a great extent,&quot; said the EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity. &#39;Reorientation&#39;&nbsp;A biannual political forum, the EPC was established on the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron in 2022 in response to the invasion of Ukraine. It brings together the members of the European Union and, this time, 21 other countries, from Albania to Britain. EPC summits do not normally produce concrete decisions but offer the opportunity for leaders to exchange in groups and bilaterally. Most leaders arrived in the Armenian capital for an informal dinner on Sunday. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was expected to join the meeting on Monday, Madrid said, after a technical problem with his plane forced him to make an emergency landing in Turkey and spend the night in Ankara. The Yerevan gathering is the first of its kind in the Caucasus and comes as Armenia fosters closer ties with Europe while seeking to cautiously loosen itself from Russia&#39;s grasp. It will be followed on Tuesday by an EU-Armenia summit with the bloc&#39;s chief officials, Costa and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, who described it as a &quot;major milestone&quot; in the country&#39;s rapprochement with Europe. Relations between Yerevan and its traditional ally Moscow have become strained in recent years, in part because Russian peacekeepers failed to intervene during military conflicts with neighboring Azerbaijan. Under Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia has formally pursued a strategy of what he calls &quot;diversification,&quot; in which the landlocked country pursues ties with both Russia and the West. Costa says the bloc looks forward to &quot;deepening this relationship&quot; with the country of three million, which signed a comprehensive partnership agreement with the EU in 2017 and last year declared its intention to apply for membership. In April, the EU established a mission to help the former Soviet nation tackle foreign interference, with Russia suspected of a disinformation push ahead of the June elections. Putin has declared himself &quot;completely calm&quot; about Armenia&#39;s overtures to Europe &mdash; while also warning that belonging to both the EU and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union was &quot;simply impossible.&quot;

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US President Donald Trump will loom large over the meeting of the European Political Community; The Iran war, which has rattled the global economy by sending energy prices soaring, has deepened a rift in transatlantic ties.

Europe, Canada leaders hold Yerevan talks in Trump's shadow

MONTREAL: Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday launched a multi-billion-dollar plan to strengthen the Canadian military and rely less on the United States. Carney&#39;s announcement of Canada&#39;s first defense industrial strategy built on themes he has emphasized during his 11-month tenure as President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/trump-threatens-to-stop-opening-of-canadaus-bridge" style="color:#0073e6;">rips</a>&nbsp;through <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/trump-threatens-canada-with-100-tariff-if-it-completes-china-trade-deal" style="color:#0073e6;">traditional</a> US alliances. The prime minister says Canada has not done nearly enough to defend itself in an increasingly dangerous world and counting on US protection is no longer viable. &quot;We&#39;ve relied too heavily on our geography and others to protect us,&quot; Carney said. &quot;This has created vulnerabilities that we can no longer afford and dependencies that we can no longer sustain,&quot; he added. Carney has become one of the most prominent global voices criticizing Trump&#39;s administration, notably after his speech at the World Economic Forum last month where he said Trump had triggered a &quot;rupture&quot; in the rules-based global order. On Tuesday, Carney also addressed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio&#39;s speech last week to the Munich Security Conference, highlighting what the Canadian leader sees as the widening gap between US and Canadian values. Carney, addressing reporters after giving a speech on the defense plan, pivoted to Rubio&#39;s speech without being asked about it. He cautioned that Trump&#39;s top diplomat had spoken of Washington&#39;s desire to defend &quot;Christian nationalism.&quot; &quot;Canadian nationalism is civic nationalism,&quot; and Ottawa&#39;s mandate was to defend the rights of everyone in a vast and diverse country, Carney said. &quot;There is a rivalry taking place between Canadian nationalism and other forms of nationalism,&quot; he added, speaking in French. In Munich, Rubio said &quot;Western Civilization&quot; was defined by &quot;Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices of our forefathers.&quot; Never be &#39;hostage&#39;&nbsp;Carney&#39;s office said the defense industrial strategy amounts to an investment of &quot;over half a trillion dollars (US$366 billion) in Canadian security, economic prosperity, and our sovereignty.&quot; In addition to direct government defense spending of about CAN$80 billion over the next five years, the plan includes CAN$180 billion in defense procurement and CAN$290 billion in defense and security-related infrastructure through the coming decade, Carney said. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce applauded Carney for having &quot;bet big on Canada.&quot; &quot;The scale of new funding is unprecedented,&quot; the group&#39;s vice president, David Pierce, said in a statement, adding that the plan will be measured by whether the funds produce &quot;a stronger Canadian Armed Forces.&quot; For Carney, the increasingly fragile security relationship with the United States does not mean Canada should do it alone on defense. His government has pursued closer military ties with the European Union and, at the Munich conference, Ottawa formally joined the EU&#39;s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program &mdash; making Canada the only non-European member of the bloc&#39;s defense financing scheme. The prime minister on Tuesday also talked about hopes for new defense export opportunities in Asia, notably with South Korea. The goal is to &quot;be strong enough to be a partner of choice,&quot; the prime minister said. Canada should build &quot;a domestic defense industrial base so we are never hostage to the decisions of others when it comes to our security,&quot; he said. Carney also re-emphasized the need to enforce Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic, where warming temperatures caused by climate change are thawing the ice, opening a new era of competition for critical minerals.

Carney's announcement of Canada's first defense industrial strategy built on themes he has emphasized during his 11-month tenure as President Donald Trump rips through traditional US alliances.

Articles tagged with "US Canada relationship"

Europe, Canada leaders hold Yerevan talks in Trump's shadow

Canada launches huge defense plan to curb reliance on US