Dispute with Trump: Canada could be excluded from Five Eye spy alliance
According to a report, Trump's chief adviser for trade and industrial policy wants to further increase the pressure on Canada. The goal: to make the country the 51st state of the USA.
According to the Financial Times, Peter Navarro, one of US President Donald Trump's closest advisers, is pushing for the US to exclude Canada from the Five Eyes, an exclusive spy alliance that also includes Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
The Financial Times cites government officials who were informed of Navarro's request. According to the report, Navarro argued to decision-makers in the White House that the US should increase pressure on Canada if the country is to become the 51st US state. It is still unclear whether the idea will appeal to Trump. In any case, it is currently being discussed, the report continues.
Trump's top trade warrior Navarro is an American professor of economics at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. The US president appointed him as "Director of Trade and Industrial Policy" to head a newly created US National Trade Council.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau , who will step down from office on March 9, sees Trump's threat as a "real" danger . The USA is after Canada's wealth of natural resources. Trump wants to "suck up our country and that is a reality," Trudeau said two and a half weeks ago at a business meeting in Toronto. Trump threatened that he wanted to annex Canada. On Monday, the US president reiterated his plans to impose import tariffs of 25 percent on all goods from Mexico and Canada . The plan was initially suspended for four weeks, but is now to come into force after March 4 - when the deadline expires.
The Five Eyes are a relic of the Cold War. The five members share the responsibility for spying on the globe. The spy network emerged from the British-American "UKUSA" founded in 1946 - a collaboration between Great Britain (UK) and the USA. The main aim at the time was to network intelligence activities in the Eastern Bloc. To this day, they work closely with other intelligence services.
Dennis Wilder, a former senior CIA officer who now works as a university professor, said the Five Eyes is "by far the most successful intelligence-sharing arrangement in world history." He pointed out that the partnership began when American and British codebreakers worked together to crack German secret communications during World War II. The other allies joined in 1956.
A Five Eyes intelligence official told the Financial Times that although Canada and New Zealand provide the least intelligence in the group, excluding one member would be very dangerous. It would weaken the alliance and draw criticism from other allies. "In my current situation, and given the many threats we face, we need all the partners we can get," the agent said.
Berliner-zeitung
