Pentagon halts long-standing Canada-US defence board amid tensions

The United States has paused a long-standing military co-operation board with Canada, with a senior Pentagon official claiming Ottawa has “failed to make credible progress on its defense commitments.”

US undersecretary of defence Elbridge Colby announced on social media that the Permanent Joint Board on Defense would be paused “to reassess how this forum benefits shared North American defense.”

The advisory board was established in 1940 to oversee defence co-operation between Canada and the United States.

Colby wrote that Washington “can no longer avoid the gaps between rhetoric and reality,” while sharing a transcript of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year.

The move comes despite Canada recently increasing defence spending to meet NATO’s target of spending two per cent of GDP on defence.

Ottawa spent $63.4 billion on national defence in 2025.

Former Conservative leader Erin O'Toole called the US decision “profoundly misguided.”

Carleton University professor Fen Osler Hampson described the decision as “ominous,” to CTV News, warning it could affect future defence procurement discussions, including Canada’s planned purchase of F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin.