How NORAD could be hurt by US-Canada tensions

If President Trump’s tariffs and threats shatter the U.S.-Canadian defense partnership, the Pentagon would lose some ability to track incoming enemy threats.

Without Canada’s radar sites, “the northern approaches would be severely under-resourced, and we would lose a significant amount of domain awareness and response in the northern approaches, which is the fastest and the easiest approach for adversaries to take to North America,” said Gen. Gregory Guillot, head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command.

The future of NORAD, the world’s only bi-national command, has come into question amid Trump’s threats to levy heavy tariffs—and turn America’s northern neighbor into its 51st state. In response, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently declared the centuries-old U.S.-Canada relationship to be “over.”

Everything NORAD does is “interwoven” with Canada, so the command would have to “fundamentally change” how it conducts air defense and maritime warning, Guillot told lawmakers during a House Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday. 

He said the U.S. would need to spend heavily on radars, aircraft, and warships to rebuild its ability to spot incoming threats.

However, Guillot said the military-to-military relationship between the U.S. and Canada remains “as strong as ever” and that he hasn’t seen the White House’s stance cause friction at NORAD.

“We have several hundred Canadians that work side by side with us, as well as at the installations. At the military-to-military-relationship level, we have zero problems or concerns. Everybody's focused on defending our continent,” he said. 

During the hearing, Democratic lawmakers voiced concerns that Trump’s trade wars are pushing allies away from the U.S, pointing to a recent agreement between Japan, South Korea, and China. 

Trump is set to announce new tariffs on Wednesday with the stated aim of reducing U.S. reliance on foreign products. 

“We're all going to find out tomorrow the extent of the next level of these tariffs, but it's impossible for anyone to argue reasonably that it's not impacting the ability of us to interact with our allies when their governments are being put under such strain and pressure with these policies that are again, seem to be cascading out every single day,” said Rep. Joe Courtney, D-CT. 

Border operations

Defense officials also testified on the department’s intensifying border operations, which have cost the Pentagon $376 million over the past two months, according to Rafael Leonardo, who is performing the duties of assistant defense secretary for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs. The money has gone to send more troops to the border, use military aircraft to deport people, and to expand detention operations at Guantanamo Bay, among other missions. 

The department expects that level of spending to continue, Leonardo said, which could bring the total to $2 billion during Trump’s first year—but costs may continue to rise with the unusual deployment of two Navy destroyers to help with border operations. 

These operations will likely continue for years, Guillot said. 

“The initial results of sealing the border have been fantastic, if you look at the stats, but we need to make sure that [it’s] one that's lasting and goes through all the cycles of illegal migration that we see. Seasonal impact is significant on this. And then we need to make sure that it's sealed, and it remains sealed. And I think that will take probably a couple of years,” Guillot said. 

As of now, there are about 6,700 troops at the border, with 10,000 total expected to deploy. Guillot said that 90 percent of the troops are conducting surveillance missions at the border, and emphasized that troops are not detaining migrants. 

But officials are reportedly mulling plans to have NORTHCOM take command of land along the border and designate it as a military installation, CNN reported, so if migrants step foot on the land they would be put into “holding” for trespassing, allowing the military to detain migrants.