Prime Minister Trudeau heads to NATO summit, where leaders face critical decisions

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau departs Ottawa on Sunday, June 25, 2023, en route to Iceland. Trudeau is heading to the NATO leaders’ summit in Lithuania this week, where Canada is likely to play a larger-than-usual role in two critical discussions: the alliance’s expanding membership and its efforts to refocus on collective defence. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

By Sarah Ritchie in Ottawa

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is heading to the NATO leaders’ summit in Lithuania this week, where Canada is likely to play a larger-than-usual role in two critical discussions: the alliance’s expanding membership and its efforts to refocus on collective defence.

Trudeau is expected to depart for Riga, Latvia, from Ottawa on Sunday evening. He is due to meet with that country’s leaders on Monday before heading to the Lithuanian capital for the first day of the NATO summit on Tuesday.

At last year’s summit in Madrid, NATO leaders identified Russia as “the most significant and direct threat to allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area” in a strategic concept document that set out their intent to strengthen deterrence and defence in the region.

That came after a meeting in Brussels in March 2022, when leaders agreed to deploy four new multinational battle groups on the eastern flank in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, adding to those in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

The alliance has drafted a new defence plan that leaders will be asked to approve in Vilnius, one that is being described as a return to its Cold War stance.

“What we’re seeing now is really a return to NATO’s core business,” said Tim Sayle, a NATO historian and professor at the University of Toronto.

He said this likely also means a return to more challenging negotiations among members as they decide on defence policy and procurement, at the same time as they are debating whether to allow Sweden and Ukraine to join. And on both topics, he said, allies will be looking to Canada.

“Rarely are there summits where Canada would be a focus of any elements, but I do think (it) is here,” Sayle said.

“Canada has a decision to make about its role in the discussion about Ukraine, but it also has this decision to make about Canadian defence spending and just what kind of ally Canada is going to be.”

Adm. Rob Bauer, the chair of NATO’s military committee, told media at a July 3 briefing that the new defence plan is split into three parts: the southeast region including the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, the central region from the Baltics to the Alps and the High North and Atlantic region.

Once the plans are approved, the real work begins. “Then we have to go and do our work to reach the higher number of forces with a higher readiness, we need to exercise against the plans, we need to buy the capabilities that we require,” Bauer said.

That will require more money. Only about a third of NATO members are meeting the agreed-upon target of spending two per cent of their GDP on defence — which includes a pledge to dedicate one-fifth of that funding to equipment.

Bauer said he expects two per cent will be the spending floor, instead of the target, by the time the summit is over.

“There is perhaps a stronger link than ever before between the new defence plans, the new defence investment pledge and the NATO defence planning process,” NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said at the July 3 briefing.

For the countries that are lagging behind, there will be increasing pressure to step up.

Canada spends about 1.3 per cent of its GDP on defence and has no public plan to get to the current target. Defence Minister Anita Anand has insisted that Canada’s contributions to the defence of Ukraine and its leadership in heading up a NATO battle group in Latvia are more important.

Before attending the NATO summit, Trudeau is set to participate in meetings Monday with Latvia’s president, Edgars Rinkēvičs, and its prime minister, Krišjānis Kariņš.

Trudeau is also expected to meet Canadian Armed Forces members who are part of the country’s largest overseas mission.

But even in Latvia, Canada seems to be lagging behind. It’s been more than a year since Anand pledged to expand the battle group to a combat-ready brigade, and detailed plans are still being negotiated. Battle groups typically have close to 1,000 troops, while military members in a brigade number about 3,000.

Canada has committed to sending a tank squadron with 15 Leopard 2 tanks and some 130 personnel to Latvia starting this fall, but it is unclear how many more troops will join the 800 Canadians already in place.

Other countries have gone further. Germany has pledged to station a 4,000-soldier brigade in Lithuania. The United Kingdom, which is leading a battle group in Estonia, and the United States, which leads another in Poland, tested their ability to quickly scale up to a brigade earlier this spring.

Leaders in Vilnius are also likely to focus on the status of Sweden and Ukraine, each of which has asked to join NATO.

Last-minute talks aimed at getting Turkiye and Hungary on side with allowing Sweden to become a member have not been successful. Its Nordic neighbour Finland joined most recently, in April.

If Sweden’s membership is approved, Bauer said it won’t take long to adapt the defence plans.

“Sweden is at the table in the military committee, in the North Atlantic Council every week. So they know basically everything already,” he said.

More contentious than that is the issue of when to admit Ukraine.

Some nations are pushing for immediate membership. U.K. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said last month that he hopes to see an expedited process.

Meanwhile, Trudeau has repeatedly stated that Canada supports Ukraine’s membership “when the conditions are right,” without defining what those conditions are.

Sayle said it’s likely that other countries will expect a clearer response this time given the magnitude of the decision: whether to admit a nation that is in the midst of an active invasion to an alliance focused on collective defence.

“I think that what NATO says about Ukrainian membership will impact both the Ukrainian and Russian strategic calculations in this war, and any peace that might follow,” Sayle said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 9, 2023.

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International

No more shoes off: Trump ends TSA’s decades-old rule

Published on July 9, 2025

Todayville

MxM News

Quick Hit:

The Trump administration is phasing out one of the most despised airport security policies in America: the requirement to remove shoes during TSA screening.

Key Details:

Passengers will no longer be required to remove their shoes at airport security checkpoints in coming weeks.
The change is rolling out at Baltimore, Fort Lauderdale, Cincinnati, Portland, Philadelphia, and Piedmont Triad airports.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the policy reversal on Tuesday morning.

Diving Deeper:

The Trump administration announced it is ending the much-loathed Transportation Security Administration rule requiring passengers to remove their shoes during security checks, a mandate that has frustrated Americans since its introduction nearly two decades ago.

The change is being implemented first at Baltimore/Washington International Airport, Fort Lauderdale International Airport, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Portland International Airport, Philadelphia International Airport, and Piedmont Triad International Airport in North Carolina, according to CBS News. The policy will expand to additional airports nationwide in the coming weeks.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared the news on X, posting, “Big news from [the Department of Homeland Security]!” Tuesday morning. A TSA spokesman told The New York Times that “TSA and DHS are always exploring new and innovative ways to enhance the passenger experience and our strong security posture,” suggesting the policy change is part of broader improvements under President Trump’s leadership.

The policy to remove shoes was first instituted in 2006, stemming from the December 2001 attempt by Richard Reid, known as the “shoe bomber,” to ignite explosives hidden in his shoes on a flight from Paris to Miami. Reid was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to terrorism charges, but critics have argued the policy punishes every American traveler for the actions of one terrorist nearly 25 years ago.

Before the update, travelers in the TSA PreCheck program were already exempt from removing shoes, belts, and jackets. Now, under President Trump’s directive to reduce pointless regulatory burdens, the policy is being eliminated for all travelers.

Daily Caller

USAID Quietly Sent Thousands Of Viruses To Chinese Military-Linked Biolab

Published on July 9, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Emily Kopp

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) shipped thousands of viral samples to a lab in Wuhan over the course of a 10-year program even though it had no formal agreement with the lab in place, according to previously unreported documents.

The documents show that USAID funded the exportation of 11,000 samples from Yunnan Province, where some of the closest relatives of the COVID-19 virus circulate, to Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic, with no apparent plan for ensuring the samples were not misdirected to bioweapons and remained accessible to the U.S. government.

A $210 million USAID public health program called PREDICT, steered by the University of California-Davis, collected viral samples in countries throughout the globe but lacked long-term storage when funding dried up, according to rudimentary plans in 2019.

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USAID’s sample dispensation plan for China is sparse: “No need [sic] information from Yunnan. They were never an official lab partner for PREDICT. All samples they helped collected [sic] are sent to, tested, and stored in Wuhan.”

The “lab” refers to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). WIV was a close partner of USAID contractor EcoHealth Alliance and a slated partner for a PREDICT-like program supported by the State Department. The lab has poor biosafety practices and ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

One of the closest known relatives of the COVID virus is among the viruses sampled with USAID funding.

“Investigations involving USAID’s former funding of global health awards remain active and ongoing,” a senior State Department official said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The American people can rest assured knowing that under the Trump Administration we will not be funding these controversial programs.”

The internal documents were obtained through a FOIA lawsuit brought by U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit newsroom and public health research group.

The shuttering of USAID – which was officially completed Tuesday – has ignited a debate about its net impact on global health. A study in The Lancet projected an association between a dropoff in USAID funding and 14 million deaths based on an epidemiological model.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Tuesday that USAID spending has often undermined rather than strengthened American interests.

“Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War,” Rubio said. “Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown.”

The now-defunct agency’s connection to the Wuhan lab complicates its global health legacy.

“The USAID $210 million contract for PREDICT should have included contractual terms that required all samples, or at least copies of all samples, be transferred to and stored by a US government facility,” said Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright told the DCNF. “The PREDICT grift did none of this.”

UC Davis did not respond to a request for comment. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Today marks the first day of the State Department's America First foreign assistance rebranding initiative, led by @SecRubio.

Consistent branding will ensure contributions made by the the United States will be immediately recognized as American.

"The redesign is very simple,… pic.twitter.com/HZnbOxU0Sq

— Department of State (@StateDept) July 2, 2025

Did USAID Fund COVID’s Ancestor?

Many of the viruses stored at the lab in Wuhan may have been sampled with U.S. funding yet remain out of reach for U.S. government entities investigating the origins of COVID.

The samples were set to be preserved for testing – with human samples preserved for 10 years – the documents show. But the documents suggest that requirement was never incorporated into a formal contract with USAID.

The two scientists supervising the samples were: Ben Hu, a virologist at the WIV, who reportedly became sick with COVID-like symptoms in 2019; and Peter Daszak, a scientist who was debarred from federal funding after the U.S. government deemed him a threat to public safety for inadequate oversight of the research in Wuhan.

Hu and Daszak did not reply to requests for comment.

The documents show PREDICT contractors discussing viral samples taken from wildlife and stored in India, Liberia, Malaysia, the Republic of Congo and China. Some of the samples were stored in virus-transport media (VTM), which allows researchers to store live viruses for later use in the lab.

“It’s not rocket science to require a contract and supporting paperwork which establishes a relationship, testing protocol, and chain of custody, when one is sending out lab samples,” said Reuben Guttman, a partner at Guttman, Buschner & Brooks PLLC who specializes in ensuring the integrity of government programs, in an interview with the DCNF. “In any scientific endeavor, you need confidence in your results. That requires paperwork to prove your methodology is sound.”