 "US wants Canada out of Five Eyes alliance. Here’s why it is a bad idea... even for Washington")
The United States and Canada have been allies, but the long friendship is seeing a rough patch after Donald Trump returned to the White House. At first, the US president spoke of annexing the neighbouring country as the 51st state. Then, he announced 25 per cent tariffs on imports from the country.
And now, it is reported that a White House official has proposed expelling Canada from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network. According to a Financial Times report, Peter Navarro, a trade envoy and one of the most trusted officials in Trump’s administration, is reported to have suggested the move in an attempt to exert more pressure on Canada over trade.
Following the report making headlines everywhere, Navarro denied the claims, saying it was “crazy stuff” and “we would never jeopardise our national security… with allies like Canada.”
As the story continues to make a buzz, we take a closer look at what exactly is the Five Eyes intelligence group and what could be the implications if such a move took place.
Five Eyes — an exclusive club
Also known as FVEY, the Five Eyes is an intelligence-sharing group made up of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The documents and intelligence shared by the member countries are classified as ‘Secret — Aus/Can/NZ/UK/US Eyes Only,’ which is why it is named ‘Five Eyes.’
The genesis of this collective dates back to World War II when American and British code breakers worked together to decipher German secret communications. It was formalised following the war in 1946 through the British-US Communication Intelligence Agreement, or BRUSA (now known as the UKUSA Agreement). At the time, the group’s scope was restricted to “communication intelligence matters only”. It was then extended to ‘second party’ countries; in 1948, Canada joined in while Australia and New Zealand became members in 1956.
Notably, countries such as Norway, Denmark, and West Germany were a part of the alliance, but by 1955, the number of members was reduced to its current form.
The Five Eyes is highly secretive — surprisingly, former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam didn’t even know of its existence until 1973, as per an article in the Journal of Cold War Studies. No government even acknowledged the existence of such a collective until 1999 and, interestingly, the text of the agreement was only released to the public in 2010.
The alliance garnered significant attention and controversy in 2013 when former US National Security Agency (NSA) employee Edward Snowden exposed classified documents detailing its activities to the public.
The 2015 James Bond movie Spectre paid homage to the Five Eyes with its own intelligence-gathering alliance it named the ‘Nine Eyes Committee’.
The group also earned attention during the India-Canada row over the killing of Khalistani Hardeep Singh Nijjar . At the time of the incident, US Ambassador David Cohen confirmed that there was “shared intelligence among ‘Five Eyes’ partners that helped lead Canada” to accuse India of “possible” involvement in the killing of the Khalistani separatist.
Many countries such as Israel have expressed a desire to join this agreement, making it Six or Seven Eyes. But this is one of the world’s most elite and secretive clubs, and the members do not want to admit new members.
Inner workings of the Five Eyes
Today, the Five Eyes alliance works together and shares a broad range of information and access to their respective intelligence agencies. Its charter reads, “It is recognised that the intelligence agencies of the Five Eyes countries cooperate operationally under formal or informal agreements and whereas each country has a variation of law on security of information or official secrets binding officials to secrecy, the Council Members commit to facilitating information sharing and collaboration between themselves…”
The member countries of the alliance share human intelligence, signal intelligence (SIGINT), security intelligence, geospatial intelligence and defence intelligence with each other. SIGINT is information from radars, the internet, mobile networks and weapons systems. Geospatial intelligence refers to satellite images, location information and “encompasses all aspects of imagery and geospatial information and services".
It is believed that the US leads the Five Eyes in which Canada and New Zealand provide the least amount of intelligence in the group.
A Canadian intelligence officer wrote in a military journal in 2020 that earlier US was responsible for Russia, northern China, most of Asia and Latin America. Australia covered southern China, Indo-China and its close neighbours, such as Indonesia, while the UK was charged with Africa and west of the Urals within the former Soviet Union. And New Zealand was responsible for the Western Pacific, while Canada handled the polar regions of Russia.
However, with the fall of the Soviet Union, the attention was shifted to issues like global terrorism.
US looking to expel Canada from Five Eyes
On Tuesday (February 25), the Financial Times reported that Peter Navarro had suggested to US President Donald Trump to axe Canada from the intelligence-sharing group. The move, as per the report, is a way for the US to exert even more pressure on its neighbouring country.
While it is not clear if Trump has backed the idea, Navarro was quick to dismiss the report altogether.
However, Stephanie Carvin, a former national-security analyst and a professor at Carleton University, told Globe and Mail that such speculation has been around recently. “This has been a persistent rumour for at least the last two weeks, and knowing the Trump administration and the threats they’ve made against Canada, it’s concerning, even with the denial,” Professor Carvin said of the Navarro story.
Notably, a newsletter published by The Economist on February 24 also mentioned similar speculation. “In Munich, I was told that American officials had earlier threatened Canada with expulsion from Five Eyes,” Economist defence editor Shashank Joshi wrote. “That was probably an idle threat, but it points to the tensions that lie ahead.”
Implications of expelling Canada from Five Eyes
Unsurprisingly, the report has irked Canada with some observers shocked at even such a suggestion. “There’s a special place in hell for Peter Navarro,” Tyler Meredith, a former senior economic adviser to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau Trudeau, wrote on X.
Other security experts also noted that such a suggestion — ousting Canada from the Five Eyes — would upend a key part of the West’s security architecture. As one Five Eyes member told the Financial Times, “Sitting where I’m sitting and looking at the array of threats that are coming at us we need all the partners we can get.”
Phil Gurski, a former Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) analyst from 2001-2015, also told The Financial Times: “What’s driving this? Yes, Canada is the smaller partner but the alliance is effectively sharing very sensitive information, the alliance is working. So why would we be punished? “This seems one more White House tactic to put pressure on Canada for god knows what?” he added.
Experts further noted that expelling Canada would not only hurt Ottawa but the United States as well.
Professor Carvin explained that if Washington were to oust Ottawa from the alliance, the country would be vulnerable to adversaries such as China and Russia. Moreover, Richard Kerbaj, a British journalist who published The Secret History of the Five Eyes in 2022 said that this move would hurt Washington as well. In a Globe and Mail report, he explained that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has great reach into the North American Chinese diaspora. However, if Ottawa was expelled, then Washington would lose this intelligence asset.
Thomas Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, also stated that Canada contributes greatly by collecting valuable signals intelligence from the Canadian Forces Station Alert in the High Arctic. “Canada absolutely should be criticised for not doing enough on the security and defence front. But in the Five Eyes, we’re a serious player,” he told The Globe and Mail.
Others also noted that by ousting Ottawa from the Five Eyes, the collective would lose valuable intelligence from the polar regions and it is not a geography that the US will want to lose.
With inputs from agencies
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