There are moments in history you only understand in hindsight.
The summer of 1945.
The fall of the Berlin Wall.
First love.

And then — quietly, almost without a sound — that moment in the spring of 2025, when Canada joined the European defence fund SAFE. Ten million euros as an entry fee. Practically a tip. No grand spectacle. No fanfare.

And yet: a turning point.

Since the end of the Second World War, the logic of the West had been simple and stable: America provides security, Europe and Canada buy American weapons. F-35 jets from Fort Worth. NATO structures under U.S. command.
Defence dollars flowed east to west across the Atlantic — reliable as clockwork.

It wasn't a bad system. It worked. For decades.

Then came Trump.
Not as a surprise — the signs had been visible for a long time.
But as a confirmation.

Tariffs on Canadian steel. Threats to annex Greenland. Public fantasies about Canada as the 51st state.
And then the decisive question: Would America actually fight for its allies when it counted?
Article 5 — the beating heart of NATO, that promise of collective defence — had suddenly become nothing more than a question mark.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said it plainly in Davos in January 2025: "The old relationship — deeply intertwined economies, close security cooperation — is over."
That wasn't rhetoric. That was a diagnosis.

Ten million euros — and a new world order

I think of the men who built the Atlantic order after 1945.
Marshall. Adenauer. Pearson.
They understood that peace needs infrastructure — not just ideas, but treaties, institutions, supply chains.
They worked at it for decades.

What we are witnessing today is a similar moment — but running in reverse.
Canada joined the EU's SAFE fund, a 150-billion-euro programme for joint European defence procurement.
As the first non-EU country ever to do so.

Britain — which left Europe in 2020 — was quoted an entry price of four to nearly seven billion euros.
Canada's contribution? A measly 10 million euros. London is still hesitating. Ottawa signed.

Canadian companies can now win EU defence contracts with up to 80 per cent Canadian content.
Saab and Bombardier are negotiating a licence to build the Swedish Gripen fighter jet in Canada — ten thousand jobs, technology transfer, dedicated research infrastructure for drones and next-generation aircraft.
Ukraine has already expressed interest in up to 150 Gripens.

Canada — the country I chose as my new home in 2016 — is becoming a European fighter jet exporter.
Who would have thought? 
I'll admit, I'm caught between two benches or chairs. 
As a pacifist, I can barely stomach the rearmament frenzy. 
As someone who has no time nor respect for bullies, though, self-defence is an obligation.

Trump wanted the allies to spend more. They are.

Here lies the bitterest irony of this story. 
Donald Trump spent years demanding that NATO members spend more on their own defence. 
Two per cent of GDP — no, five per cent.
He wasn't entirely wrong that Europe had lived too comfortably, too long, under the American security umbrella.
Now they're spending more. 
France, Germany, and Spain are jointly investing a hundred billion euros in a sixth-generation combat system. 
Europe is funding its own weapons. Canada is building European aircraft.

Only: the money isn't flowing to the United States.

Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are watching as Saab, Dassault, Airbus, Rheinmetall, and Bombardier take the contracts. 
Trump has triggered precisely what he claimed he wanted to prevent: the strategic emancipation of Europe and Canada from American defence technology.

What the numbers don't say

I'm not a military expert. I'm a storyteller.
And what moves me about this story isn't the billions — it's what lies behind them: the moment when a community decides to trust itself.
Europe forgot that after 1945 — or allowed itself to forget.
The American umbrella was so large, so reliable, so affordable. 

Why build your own structures?
Because umbrellas can close.

Because guarantees are made by human beings — and human beings change.
Because sovereignty fades when it isn't tended to.

When I built a record shop in Basel in 1981 with my partner Enrico Cenci — with our own hands, from our own resources — the lesson was the same: whoever depends on others too big gives up control. 
Whoever builds for themselves keeps their dignity.

That applies to record shops. It applies to continents.

The supply chain turns around — and that's a good thing.
The transatlantic alliance isn't dying.
It's changing.

And perhaps it will be stronger in the end — because it will rest on genuine partnerships, not one-sided dependency.
Trump wanted to wake up NATO's allies.
He succeeded.
Just not quite the way he had in mind.

History has its own sense of humour.