US President-elect Donald Trump announced that will nominate the former financial manager of George Soros, Scott Bessant, an opponent of budget deficits, as his minister of finance, BTA reported.
Sixty-two-year-old Besant is the founder of the hedge fund "Key Square Capital Management" (Key Square Capital Management), after until 1991 works intermittently for Soros Fund Management. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the first openly gay US Treasury Secretary, notes the Associated Press.
In August, he told Bloomberg that he decided to join the Trump campaign in part to fight against the rising US national debt. His views include cutting government programs and other public spending.
"The election cycle is the last chance for us in the US to get out of the mountain of debt that threatens to turn us into something like a European-style socialist democracy," he said at the time.
A US senator and supporter of Donald Trump said the US president-elect would laugh if he knew the current level of Canada's defense spending plans and called on Ottawa to do more in this direction, the Associated Press reported. press, quoted by BTA.
Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho, who is his party's top representative on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said this at the opening of the annual International Security Forum in Halifax, Canada, attended by officials from the field of security and defense by Western democracies.
According to NATO data, Canada allocated 1.33% of its gross domestic product to defense last year, which is below the target of 2% of the indicator set by the countries of the alliance.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ottawa will reach the Pact's threshold by 2032
"With all due respect. We are good friends with Canada, they say "We are working on it". And we say, "Okay, what does that mean?" And they answer, ``Generally speaking, we're aiming for 2032,'' Risch said during a discussion at the forum. "If Trump were in this room, he would probably burst out laughing when he heard 2032. Improvement is needed in this direction. Indeed, there is much to be desired."
Canadian Defense Minister Jim Blair said his government is aware it needs to increase defense spending, but added that Canada must first make those investments truly "pay off" in time.
"When our allies say they want us to fulfill our obligation, they are knocking on an open door. I always tell them the answer is "Yes" and that we will keep our commitment,'' Blair said. "We will make these investments."
Canada intends to purchase reconnaissance aircraft, helicopters and replenish its stockpile of ammunition. Future acquisition of submarines is also envisaged.
Trudeau recently reinstated a special cabinet committee on US-Canadian relations to work on topics of concern to his government in connection with Trump's upcoming second term.
Former US ambassador to Ottawa Kelly Craft said in the final days of the US presidential race that it would be wise for Canada to shorten the deadline for meeting the NATO benchmark for defense spending if the Republican wins the election.
Retired Gen.-Lieut. Andrew Leslie - a former lawmaker from Trudeau's party - told the parliamentary defense committee two days after the US vote that he did not see "any urgent action" on the part of the cabinet for the fulfillment of obligations.
After Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014, NATO allies agreed to stop cutting their defense budgets and move to increase defense spending, reaching 2% of GDP in within a decade. At the time, Canada allocated just 1%.
Last year, when it became clear that Russia's war with Ukraine was going to drag on, they decided to make the 2% threshold just the minimum for defense spending.
Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he expects about two-thirds of the countries in the 32-member alliance to meet the two percent requirement this year, down from just three countries meeting that criterion a decade ago, the Associated Press notes.