Should Trump's ambassador to Canada get the boot?

At last count, nearly 200,000 people have signed an online petition demanding the expulsion of Donald Trump's ambassador to Canada.

The petition — which will be presented in the House of Commons this fall — calls on the federal government to declare Pete Hoekstra persona non grata and remove him from Canada.

The petition accuses the ambassador of making statements that undermine the Canada-U.S. relationship, and of intervening in Canadian political discourse in a manner inconsistent with diplomatic protocol.

Last year, shortly after he assumed his current role, Hoekstra joined our podcast for a wide-ranging conversation about tariffs, friendship — and all the rhetoric about Canada becoming the 51st state.

On this week's episode of Closer Look, we revisit parts of that conversation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

We're trying to do the things that we need to do to strengthen America.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

It's Sunday, August the 16th. Welcome back to Closer Look. I'm Scott Sexmith Frisco, away on assignment again this week. Every day the number gets higher. At last count, more than 100,000 people have signed an online petition demanding the removal of Donald Trump's ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoakstra. The petition, which will be presented in the House of Commons this fall, calls on the federal government to declare Hoakstra non grata and remove him from Canada. The petition accuses the ambassador of making statements that undermine the Canada-U.S. relationship and of intervening in Canadian political discourse in a manner inconsistent with diplomatic protocol. Last year, shortly after he took over as Trump's man here in Canada, Hoakstra joined our podcast for a wide-ranging conversation about tariffs, friendship, and all the rhetoric about Canada becoming the 51st state. Amid all the headlines about the petition, we're going to revisit parts of that conversation on this week's episode of Closer Look.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Where did that come from then? And is that have we passed that discussion?

SPEAKER_03 1:43

I am. I've told people I don't talk about it, so I'm not really going to talk about it with you either, other than uh, you know, saying, you know, when you're working for Donald Trump, okay, and you can see the urgency with which this president is has been moving through the first half year of his presidency. It's we need to get to results. Uh the results and the mandate have been clearly laid out for us as diplomats around the world. We need to you know do everything that we can to uh improve our uh the prosperity of the American people, prosperity of our allies, but the focus as an American diplomat is a prosperity for America, uh safety for Americans and uh our security. And so those are the things that I am focused on. I asked myself the question: if we're talking about the 51st state, am I improving the prosperity of Americans or Canadians? Uh am I improving the safety or security of either one of our countries? The answer is no. So thanks. You guys can talk about it tomorrow for 20 minutes if you'd like, uh, about how. Boy, that American ambassador was really evasive on that issue. Um, but uh so you you can have that discussion tomorrow. Uh, I'm not focused on it. We recognize that there's an ecosystem that has developed because of you know continuing improvements in trade relationships that have tied our borders together. You know, you're from Ontario, uh, I'm from Michigan. We've got an, you know, we not only have trade between uh the U.S. and Ontario and Canada, we have an ecosystem, especially like an automotive, right? I mean, this is not, uh, we'll sell you. We got an ecosystem that says you build something Ontario in the afternoon in the morning, in the afternoon, it could be on a car going to a dealership or to a customer. That's not trade. That's an ecosystem.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

You're definitely right using that term. We do have that ecosystem. It's been in place for a long time. You talked about auto parts crossing the border multiple times before something is built. But is it fair to say that the tariffs in a lot of ways have drastically altered that ecosystem? There's a lot of industries in Canada that are suddenly all of all of a sudden hurting really very very badly, Ambassador. The steel industry, the aluminum industry, the forestry industry. So it has had a major impact on those industries. From where you're sitting, how do you react to that? What do you say to those industries?

SPEAKER_03 4:12

Well, number one, the um the tariffs, okay, every everybody wants to blame everything on the tariffs. Okay. The effective tariff rate between of Canadian goods going into the U.S. Again, as outlined by by your government, not the U.S. claiming something, is around 5.5%. Okay, that's not a huge number. We had to do the stuff on steel, aluminum, copper, and some of these types of things because the the president wants our country to be secure. And we need the capability to produce those kinds of products uh in the United States. Uh, there have been opportunities in, you know, to negotiate that and move that, you know, move that forward uh to, you know, and you know, the Canadian government right now is talking about, well, you know, maybe we can get smaller sector agreements on those things. But again, for those four or five items that fall under what we call Section 232 uh in uh in American law, those tariffs have been put in place on every country in the world uh because we think that we think we made some not so bright decisions in terms of of how we would develop and make sure that we maintain those industries.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

I don't know if you've seen our Ontario Premier Doug Ford is very vocal about speaking out against some of the moves by the Trump administration, has talked openly about wanting to sit down with President Trump. Have you ever had a chance to meet with Doug Ford? No, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

Yes. I mean, Doug Doug's a great guy. He gave me one of your uh slightly odd-shaped uh Canadian footballs. Okay. Um no, we had a uh he brought in a couple of uh the uh parliamentarians that serve in the uh provincial parliament, uh Dutch heritage from around the Niagara region. Uh they brought me some Dutch pastries. Diane and I loved it. So no, I've had the opportunity to talk with Doug. And uh of course, I mean the uh it being part of the Trump administration, uh, you know, it's kind of like uh yeah, I I watch what what happens in the media, I watch what Doug says, uh, as does uh the Trump administration. Uh and you know, they're they're a very media savvy bunch.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Everyone's wondering if he brought you a bottle of Crown Royal, but I won't ask you that. Um did did can you tell us any more details about your meeting with the Prime Premier Ford? Did anything come out of it? Did were any did any was anything accomplished from your meetings with him?

SPEAKER_03 7:00

Well, it was early in my tenure here, and we've had the opportunity since then to uh to talk about a couple of different issues. And uh obviously uh you know Doug is on a different page uh than where the U.S. administration is, and so uh, yeah, uh yeah. So no, we we we uh I haven't I haven't moved Doug to a point where I can get him to be a strong advocate for the Canadian American relationship.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Ambassador, uh Canadians are traveling uh a lot less uh to the United States. Does that concern you?

SPEAKER_03 7:37

Sure. I mean what they do is they just don't get to see a wonderful part of the world. I uh I enjoyed uh Diana and I have enjoyed traveling through Canada. And like I said, um I sometimes have a little bit of a hard time understanding this. Okay. You have the best trade relationship of anybody in the world, the best trade tariff rate of anybody in the world. Um and we're you know, in in the coming days, we're gonna see that the process uh is going to uh evolve to you know reviewing uh you know USMCA. Okay uh does banning American alcohol does that help? Uh does saying, you know, we're not going to America, does that help? I hey that those are decisions for Canadians on an individual uh basis uh you know to make. Okay. Uh we're doing everything we can uh to strengthen this relationship, uh to grow this relationship. You if you have an ecosystem, and we know how long it took to develop this ecosystem, uh, but if Canada decides that, you know, from an economic and manufacturing standpoint, that ecosystem is no longer valuable to Canada and to the economy of Canada, that's okay. I think it would be hard to recreate that ecosystem. Uh, and there would be significant hardship as you transfer from that to try to create a new one. Um, but again, that's a that's a decision that is made by a sovereign state.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

I think the concern we hear from Canadians is all the sudden uncertainty of it all. So we have this deal in place, but then we're hearing this one day there'll be a 50% tariff added to this industry, a 25% tariff added to that industry. How do we move forward from that, Ambassador? How do we make a deal that brings back some certainty to Canadians and the Canadian industries that employ them?

SPEAKER_03 9:31

Well, how do you bring back a deal that uh brings back certainty to America? Okay. Uh I'm I've got a lot of American companies that have contacted me and say, hey, Pete, you know, we've been trying to sell into uh a certain province, okay? But they've not only put in buy, you know, Canadian, which is fine. We have buy-American provisions. I voted for those when I was in Congress. Okay. But you know, their their criteria is buy provincial, buy Canadian, buy international. And if you uh, you know, and if you still haven't found a source, maybe you don't need to buy, and as a last resort, you know, buy American. If you really, really, really, really need it, uh, but you can't find it anywhere else, it's okay to buy America. Okay. That, you know, that that's some of the kind of stuff that we hear and feel. Is it is it the vast majority of what we hear? Absolutely not. The the vast majority of businesses that we talk to uh are saying, yeah, Pete, we listen to all this noise, and yeah, some of this does affect us. Um, but you know, we're still doing a lot of business with America, and you're doing a lot of business with us, and it's been a great relationship, and we want it to continue. Take care of the noise, settle this, and let's move forward. Yeah, it is an awesome relationship. Uh, and I want to be an advocate not only for America, but I want to be an advocate for Canada to America. Um, we're looking for folks in Canada right now that would be that can and should, I think should be. They should be advocates for Canada because you're Canadians. But at the same time, it would be nice to see more folks who are advocacy actually advocates for America. Okay. Donald Trump has given you the best deal of any country in the world. We have the framework and the opportunity to not only take a great relationship uh and make it much better. Okay. But again, I think that's true. That's what we would like to see. Whether that's what Canada wants or not, that's for your political leaders uh to decide. You know, being anti-American, uh, you know, I might as well get in trouble, right? We want to make create a little bit of news uh today, okay? Otherwise it'll be why why why should we watch these guys? They never make any news. Uh, you know, the uh but you know, uh I rec I'm a politician. I spent 18 years uh, you know, trying to get enough votes uh every two years to get re-elected to Congress. Why I did that? I know people sometimes will question my sanity, but you know, I did that for 18 years. And I recognize uh that a lot of people in Canada, uh way too many, uh, have made being anti-American good politics, being anti-Donald Trump being good politics. The only thing that I would lay out there uh for people to consider uh when I ran for office, we always said good politics is good policy. Or good policy, excuse me. I got that backwards. Uh good policy is good politics. All right. Uh maybe that's something that we should all focus on. Let's do good policy so that uh that ends up being good politics because that will bring that will bring prosperity, security, and safety to our countries. And we will have more of that if we do it together rather than doing it separately.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Can I just follow up on that, Ambassador, real quickly? I think does do you and the Trump administration understand that I think some of that anti-Americanism or up frustration with America is because of the tariffs that have come in place in the last few months, all the uncertainty they brought, the job losses they've they've triggered, things like that. That that's what's triggering the bio-Canadian uh movement, for example, right?

SPEAKER_03 13:25

The um you've got the best trade deal. Okay? Other countries are dealing with this and have dealt with it in in different ways. We've got new agreements with the EU. We've got new agreements with Japan. Uh, we've got new agreements with South South Korea, we've got so we've got the EU, we've got the UK. Yeah, we've we've worked through that. Uh you continue to still have better, a better tariff deal than any of these countries uh in the world today. Is there uncertainty? Yes, but it would have been it would have been negligent on the part of American leadership to not address the problems that we faced. We, you know, we had a long-term issue in terms of ensuring prosperity for the American people, a long-term issue with security and safety. Um, you know, and if the Canadians want to be mad about us addressing uh you know the internal issues that we had, they can do that. But in the long run, North America, the West, and all of that will be in a stronger position if we have a strong America rather than if we had an America in that America that was collapsing and having a debt crisis uh or unable to you know deal with the military threats out there because we just couldn't produce the things that we needed to produce. We saw this, you know, we I witnessed this uh when I was in the Netherlands. Okay. NATO was totally unprepared to deal with Russia. And what happened? Donald Trump raised the alarm on that for four years, and NATO laughed at Donald Trump, and NATO laughed at the United States of America. And as soon as Donald Trump was out of office, Russia invaded Ukraine. That is what weakness in America, and that is what weakness in the West will get you. We are fighting for a strong America. We are rebuilding America to be respected and strong. And I believe the West and particularly Canada, because we share a 5,000-mile border. We have these ecosystems in place. Those ecosystems can grow and benefit Americans and Canadians. We've created lots of wealth uh on both sides of the border uh because of this relationship. Give us a break. Uh not because you know we're we're trying to do the things that we need to do to strengthen America.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

That's our show for this week. As always, we appreciate your time each and every Sunday. Be sure to follow us on our social channels, subscribe and watch back episodes at closerlookpodcast.ca and reach out anytime at closerlook at villagemedia.ca. Today's show, as always, produced by Zach Tronzo. And for everyone who makes Closer Look possible each and every week, thanks for watching. I'm Scott Sexmith. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. We'll see you next time right here on Closer Look.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Briscoe and Scott's wardrobe, provided in part by Morris Clothing for Men.