Juno News - Ambassador Pete Hoekstra claims U.S. tariffs “improved” Canada’s position

00:00:00.160 Ambassador Hoekstra, thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to speak with you

00:00:04.000 on such an important and historic occasion in America's 250th anniversary.

00:00:07.920 Well, thank you. Thanks for coming. It is a great day. It's an awesome day.

00:00:12.960 Glad to spend part of it with you.

00:00:15.280 As Canadians watch the celebrations today from this side of the border,

00:00:19.120 what message do you want Canadians to receive about America today?

00:00:23.680 Well, I think it's very consistent with the message that our Secretary of State put out,

00:00:28.880 that your prime minister put out.

00:00:33.700 You know, the friendship, the close bonds that we have.

00:00:37.700 You know, this morning I was at the flag raising for the U.S. flag

00:00:41.540 at City Hall in Ottawa.

00:00:44.720 And then in front of Parliament, you know, at the changing of the guard,

00:00:49.460 they played the U.S. national anthem as well as the Canadian anthem.

00:00:54.320 You know, we've got a long friendship that goes way back.

00:00:56.720 An ambassador's role is to represent the interests of your country.

00:01:02.400 You previously served as ambassador to the Netherlands.

00:01:06.800 But I would say that, as you probably would agree, the posting for U.S. ambassador to

00:01:11.160 Canada is quite unique in the respect that it's an immensely close relationship, very

00:01:15.820 deep internal economic ties.

00:01:19.240 And I don't think it's controversial to say that America's popularity has taken a bit

00:01:22.460 of a hit in Canada recently.

00:01:24.720 your perspective how do you assess the perception of the united states from canadians and as

00:01:30.520 ambassador do you think it's important to improve that perception i mean our focus for the last year

00:01:37.100 because it's not you know this has been a problem that has lasted for 12 14 16 months

00:01:43.860 you know i think i'm disappointed by it i tell people i don't totally understand it and they go

00:01:51.560 ah they get all upset and it's you don't understand why we're mad and it's kind of like

00:01:55.960 no not really i mean we still have two and a half billion dollars of trade crossing the border each

00:02:00.360 and every day we have canada according to the prime minister has the second best trading deal

00:02:08.440 of any country in the world with the united states of america that's not a bad place to be

00:02:13.000 and yeah we have to you know we're trying to get that perception altered back to what we think is

00:02:22.720 reality we're creating lots of prosperity lots of wealth and lots of jobs on both sides of the

00:02:30.760 border not just the southern side of the border the northern side of the border we do things that

00:02:36.180 make both countries safer. We do things together that make both countries more secure against

00:02:43.520 foreign threats. Those are all things we ought to be thankful for. For sure. And yeah, we've got,

00:02:49.960 we've got some disagreements on trade issues. We think there's areas where we don't get treated

00:02:55.000 fairly. Canada has probably some areas where they don't think that they get treated fairly. And so

00:03:00.280 we've got to work through those and resolve them and I think the future can

00:03:05.560 be very very bright but both countries you know have to work through that

00:03:11.900 process and if Canada's mad if they believe there's a rupture if they

00:03:17.960 believe that some say can't America is not trustworthy and it's kind of well

00:03:21.940 that's an interesting person I want to get into some of those trade okay of

00:03:25.300 course and it was yeah so on our national celebration on July 1st it was

00:03:29.240 announced that KUSMA would not be renewed and the agreement would remain in place essentially

00:03:33.600 as written for the next 10 years.

00:03:35.000 No, no, no, that was not what was announced.

00:03:38.240 What was announced is that we would not renew KUSMA or USMCA and extend it.

00:03:46.440 The terms of USMCA say that it can go on for one-year reviews, but it also can be terminated

00:03:56.140 by any one of the three parties at any given point of time with six months' notice.

00:04:01.900 Right.

00:04:02.900 But out of the reporting, it emerged that there is a possibility for protocols or side

00:04:08.660 deals on a bilateral basis between Canada and the United States.

00:04:12.160 For Canadians watching, particularly Canadian business owners who rely on cross-border trade,

00:04:16.720 is there any insight you can provide as to what those protocols or side deals might look

00:04:20.500 like and what you're looking for?

00:04:21.900 Well, I mean, we've seen what they might look like, okay, over the last 12 to 14 months.

00:04:28.720 We saw that there could be a trade deal, a side deal on oil.

00:04:33.980 America's looking to buy 3 to 4 million barrels of oil per day.

00:04:39.260 A natural partner, a supplier for that would be Canada, okay?

00:04:45.120 That's $100 billion to $120 billion of revenue going into your economy.

00:04:55.720 That trade deal that we had back in October also said we're going to work together on uranium.

00:05:01.340 You have significant stockpiles in Canada.

00:05:04.940 You'll only enrich to a certain standard.

00:05:08.160 We will go on and do more enrichment so that it can be used for more purposes.

00:05:15.120 So that's an area where there was potential cooperation.

00:05:19.000 It included steel and aluminum.

00:05:21.520 And we had a perfect agreement on what steel would look like,

00:05:27.080 saying that we would put the same protections around Canada

00:05:31.880 as what we have in the United States to prevent third-country dumping steel

00:05:39.160 into the North American market.

00:05:41.720 That was agreed on.

00:05:43.760 Aluminum is a relatively easy fix.

00:05:46.900 And we were also going to do something on auto parts.

00:05:50.780 So you had an indication what that would look like, and poof, it all went away.

00:05:55.980 You've said in previous interviews that you believe there is a potential win-win outcome here in a negotiation.

00:06:02.620 And I want to ask, though, if Canada was to concede on the trade irritants that your government has with Canada

00:06:10.480 and concede on that leverage it would obviously be a win for america but if that was the case what

00:06:15.120 would the win be for canada in that instance well let me give you an example the uh one of the

00:06:20.320 things that we see as a you know what we describe as irritants is pharmaceuticals okay the

00:06:28.800 pharmaceutical industry uh canada used to have a thriving research base you train lots of young

00:06:36.720 people to be researchers in the healthcare field. Where is that industry today? It's

00:06:41.580 gone because of how Canada has decided to reimburse healthcare spending and those types

00:06:48.120 of things. You've driven research out of the country. You've also, because of the way that

00:06:53.620 you are reimbursing pharmaceutical companies for certain drugs, certain drugs are no longer,

00:07:01.020 or certain drugs as they come on the market either never reach Canada

00:07:05.380 or reach Canada much later than what they reach other parts of the world.

00:07:10.420 So, you know, fixing the drug pricing issue is a win for Canadians

00:07:15.900 because it means Canadians are going to have access to, you know,

00:07:22.780 groundbreaking technologies that will keep them healthier, okay,

00:07:27.920 that will treat certain illnesses and diseases and remove an irritant between the United States

00:07:33.280 and Canada. Win-win. Fair pricing for the drugs, access to the Canadian market, but most importantly,

00:07:40.080 those drugs becoming available to Canadian citizens. So that's where you go on pharmaceuticals.

00:07:46.480 I can jump in here. The Prime Minister was... You like to jump in. You like to control these

00:07:52.560 interviews. I know you're on limited time. You're on limited time, yes. The Prime Minister was

00:07:57.440 elected on a mandate to diversify trade away from the united states to expand our trading relationship

00:08:02.720 and he's signed numerous trade deals with countries but most controversially with china

00:08:07.440 from washington's perspective is it not a concern that continuing to impose tariffs and inflict

00:08:14.160 economic pain on allies like canada is only going to drive your closer allies towards the grips of

00:08:19.680 China. Well, let's go back one step. Impose tariffs. Remember, the Prime Minister says,

00:08:28.960 you have the second best trading relationship with the United States of anybody in the world.

00:08:36.640 Eighty-five percent of the products that leave Canada, that go to the United States, go tariff

00:08:43.200 free uh you know so we're not uh and remember the second best that means relative to everybody else

00:08:53.440 in the world that has higher tariffs you've improved your competitive position with the

00:09:00.000 united states of america if you get a five percent tariff and they get 10 you've just improved your

00:09:06.320 competitive position by five percent right follow that and so you know you we've we're putting

00:09:15.040 canada in a better position to supply to the united states if canada wants to diversify

00:09:22.000 more power to you it's hard it's hard you know you you don't have we don't

00:09:28.560 and you won't find you know other countries beating down your door saying oh hallelujah

00:09:34.880 we can now buy car parts from canada is that what europe's going to do no it's hard to penetrate

00:09:40.720 into a new market it's hard to penetrate into asia and it's okay we're fine i mean we do that

00:09:47.440 every day in the united states diversify and try to find more customers canada wants to do that

00:09:53.040 that's okay too i think what you're going to find with china is find a country that says

00:10:01.680 yes we got closer to china 10 years ago and that has been an economic boom for us do you think

00:10:10.640 that without the tariff regime the initial tariff regime and sectoral tariffs on canadian critical

00:10:15.920 industries that canada would have even made the deal with china in the first place i don't i don't

00:10:20.800 know okay i mean diversification is uh it's it's a viable strategy i came out of the private sector

00:10:28.400 okay every year part of our marketing plan was we're going to take great care of our customers

00:10:33.600 that are that we have because we don't want to lose any the second thing we're going to do is

00:10:38.080 we're going to do everything we can because i was in the office furniture business we're going to do

00:10:43.840 everything we can to identify growing companies and try to get them as they start buying major

00:10:50.800 purchases of furniture the first time through and get them as customers and then the third thing

00:10:56.080 we're going to do is we're going to go to existing large companies and we're going to try to get them

00:11:01.520 to switch from steel case hayworth or whatever uh to herman miller and we always recognize that that

00:11:07.520 third bucket was the toughest bucket for us to get new business we could always yeah the easiest was

00:11:13.680 to grow business with our existing customers identify new growing customers but the toughest

00:11:19.600 one was always the third and it's the same way with the country i have to ask you about your

00:11:24.160 recent comments regarding the Gordie Howe Bridge which have received national

00:11:27.200 attention in Canada. You said that it was, if I can quote you correctly, that it

00:11:32.500 was one of the big myths about the project that Canada was funding the

00:11:36.160 bridge. I said that Canada was paying for the bridge. They are

00:11:41.500 funding the bridge. Okay, and that due to cost overruns and delays the

00:11:47.260 business model had changed. I think most Canadians, myself among them, would

00:11:52.120 look at this and say those cost overruns and delays have been absorbed by the Canadian

00:11:55.720 taxpayer. So perhaps you could explain a little bit more about what you meant by those comments

00:12:00.600 and where the where the misconception is that we have about this. Where have those been absorbed

00:12:05.080 by the Canadian taxpayer? Well, the project itself, the cost of the project was delivered

00:12:11.320 by the Canadian taxpayer. Canada gave the money. Really? Yes. What's the deal? Explain this to me.

00:12:17.560 How do you understand it?

00:12:19.720 Well, perhaps you can fill me in where we're getting this wrong,

00:12:22.320 because most Canadians seem to believe, based off the reaction of your comments,

00:12:26.100 that Canada has funded the project for this.

00:12:30.480 You even said that at the beginning of the question.

00:12:32.680 You finance the initial construction of the project.

00:12:36.060 Right.

00:12:36.440 Okay, so it's like you said the numbers are real, depending on exactly where you start.

00:12:43.560 But the estimated cost of the bridge was going to be $1.2, $1.5 billion, okay?

00:12:50.800 Financed by the Canadian government with a regime in place that that would be paid back,

00:13:00.040 meaning that at the end of the day when the funds came in from the revenue from the bridge,

00:13:05.840 the Canadian taxpayer would be off the hook.

00:13:08.920 so it's not it's financed by the taxpayer the Canadian government made a judgment that said

00:13:15.760 we're going to invest in this project there's going to be revenues coming back and we're going

00:13:22.100 to as those revenues come in we're going to pay off the bonds or whatever financing the government

00:13:27.600 is using in Canada and you know so it will be paid back the taxpayers off the hook and what

00:13:36.160 we've been dealing with and a lot of the discussions have been is, well, America, you have absolutely

00:13:41.460 no say in the bridge because we paid for it. It's kind of like, well, that doesn't seem fair.

00:13:48.040 You know, it's revenues that are coming out of the cross river border area. There's so much revenue

00:13:56.840 that comes out of there. It's either off of the tunnel or off of the bridge, right? Some of that

00:14:03.520 revenue is now going to go to the Gordie Howe Bridge to pay off the Canadian debt. And so

00:14:09.380 we view it as it's a joint project. We identified a lender up front, which was the Canadian

00:14:17.120 government. We identified a way to pay back the lender. And at that point in time, it would be

00:14:24.680 a freestanding bridge governed by an authority. And some of those basic principles

00:14:31.560 are called into question because of what's happened over the last 10 to 15 years as that

00:14:37.640 bridge has been built. And so where do we move forward? Both the Canadian government

00:14:43.660 and the American government a few weeks ago said the bridge isn't ready to open. There's some

00:14:50.080 things that we need to negotiate and that we need to work out. And when those things are worked out,

00:14:54.780 we will open the bridge. What would be your response to some Canadians who feel like there

00:15:00.180 be politics involved here that the there might be something to do with the ambassador bridge owner

00:15:04.660 donating money to the president's super pack and then just a month and a half later or so the bridge

00:15:09.380 announcement gets delayed to those that might think that what would be your response that they're

00:15:13.460 those two events might not just be a coincidence like i can't change the perception you know

00:15:21.540 the family that owns the ambassador bridge they donated to my campaign now that might have been

00:15:28.260 16 years ago that might have been 20 years ago and people are saying ah look the ambassador

00:15:33.380 was bought off by by the family now i mean the the bridge came in significantly over budget

00:15:42.020 depending on where you start it's two to three times more expensive than what it was originally

00:15:48.100 anticipated to cost it took an extra number of years to build the bridge to get to a point where

00:15:56.180 it's almost ready to open.

00:15:58.620 Those are fundamental changes to the original agreement, where the original agreement has

00:16:04.800 not been met.

00:16:06.460 If a project comes in two to three times more expensive, do you expect the terms of the

00:16:13.180 contract to potentially be re-evaluated, and the answer is, in America, yes.

00:16:19.280 Maybe in Canada, not, but in America, when a contractor doesn't deliver two contracts

00:16:25.280 within budget, there's sometimes a re-evaluation saying, okay, are the terms still the same or

00:16:32.680 should they be modified? We are where they should be modified. I want to ask you now briefly about

00:16:36.900 national security and border control. The initial emergency tariffs on Canada were related to

00:16:44.180 border enforcement, illegal migration, and drug trafficking. Since then, Canadian government has

00:16:49.900 invested heavily in border defense. We've seen, according to Canadian government and U.S. government

00:16:54.520 data, that interactions at the border have decreased, that the drug seizures have also

00:17:01.560 decreased. Is Washington satisfied with Canada's border defense measures so far?

00:17:05.940 I think we're encouraged by the progress that has been made, and that will have an impact on

00:17:11.020 the negotiations moving forward, yes. Intel agencies in the United States have

00:17:15.740 repeatedly warned that there are foreign hostile networks operating within Canada,

00:17:20.820 whether that be potentially Iranian-backed or cartels, without getting into classified

00:17:26.420 information, are able to expand a little bit on how the United States views that threat in Canada

00:17:33.380 right now? We view it as significant. We view the threat, whether it's in

00:17:42.180 intel agencies trying to penetrate into the cyber world, the threat from China is

00:17:50.260 significant whether it's the precursor drugs coming into North America that's significant

00:18:00.500 and what we want to do is we want we want to protect the cyber world we want to protect against 0.50

00:18:07.140 the precursors coming into North America and we put a lot of pressure on Mexico and those areas

00:18:14.780 Same thing we're doing with Canada, because we would love to have a secure cyber network

00:18:21.040 for Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

00:18:24.900 And also, we'd really love to see a significant decrease in the number of fentanyl deaths

00:18:31.260 in North America.

00:18:32.560 Those are things that we can really work together on.

00:18:36.400 The U.S. National Security Strategy, which was released late last year, talks about the

00:18:41.880 Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. In particular, it states that in the Western

00:18:45.540 Hemisphere, the United States will establish and expand access in strategically important

00:18:49.960 locations. One such location would be potentially the Northwest Passage. The Canadian government

00:18:56.020 views that as internal sovereign water, and the United States administration views that

00:19:00.620 as an international strait. I'm wondering if you can explain the strategic and legal

00:19:05.200 reasonings as to why the U.S. maintains this position when Canada disagrees with it.

00:19:10.660 It's an international dispute. I think this dispute has been around for quite a while. It's not brand new. I don't know the legalities and the technicalities of this, but the bottom line for us is our vision is working with Canada.

00:19:29.820 I was just at NORAD, Winnipeg, and I asked for, you know, hey, how far does NORAD go?

00:19:37.920 Okay, is it really just protecting along the western border of Canada and the United States?

00:19:44.320 And it's kind of like, no, Pete, it goes, you know, it goes along the west coast, and then it goes across the north.

00:19:50.260 All right, we've got stations in various locations that are NORAD stations and facilities.

00:19:57.940 And we think that attacks coming in over the Arctic threaten the United States,

00:20:05.720 obviously then also threaten Canada.

00:20:07.820 We think that a strategy working together and not expanding NORAD in terms of saying,

00:20:17.340 hey, you're going to cover areas that you haven't covered before,

00:20:20.220 but saying we've got the strategy up there, but it's pretty thin,

00:20:24.420 and we got to deepen that strategy we need more capabilities up there and we'd rather do that

00:20:31.160 with canada than to do it separately our our position is we think norad works and it can be

00:20:39.140 expanded and deepened against the new threats that are out there that invitation has been put

00:20:45.500 out there to canada we're waiting for canada to respond very quickly are there consent are there

00:20:51.380 Are concessions on claims to the Northwest Passage being discussed in any negotiations between Canada and the United States?

00:20:57.380 I don't know.

00:20:58.560 Okay.

00:20:59.200 I know what you're talking about in terms of concessions, in terms of saying it's sovereign Canadian territory and those types of things.

00:21:05.600 Yes.

00:21:06.140 I don't know.

00:21:07.260 I know that we would like to have the discussion about is Canada going to protect the Arctic on its own,

00:21:16.980 as the Canadian government has said, potentially, that's what they're going to do,

00:21:21.820 or are we going to do it in partnership?

00:21:23.520 Because we now, we're going to protect our north.

00:21:27.500 It's just how are we going to protect it, where are we going to protect it,

00:21:30.580 and who are our partners going to be working in the Arctic?

00:21:33.740 The guiding principle for the Carney government is about building Canada strong.

00:21:37.800 The governing philosophy for the president is about America first.

00:21:41.900 Some see those as incompatible visions for each other.

00:21:45.860 Are they?

00:21:46.220 I think if you take a look at the last 20 or 30 years, I think Canada and the United States have both benefited from the relationship that we've had together.

00:21:56.800 America's fully committed to work and strengthen those relationships.

00:22:01.020 The ball is now in Canada's court in terms of, you know, do you want to do sovereignty on your own in the digital world?

00:22:07.360 Or are you going to allow America to participate in that area?

00:22:10.540 You're going to do defense on your own, or you're going to take companies like GM who have been building and been part of the defense infrastructure over the last hundred years.

00:22:21.520 Will they be considered part of a vital component of Canada's enhancement of their defense industry?

00:22:34.000 Or is it, well, you've got the wrong logo on the building.

00:22:37.340 You're no longer going to be a part of it.

00:22:38.860 We're waiting for an answer from Canada on that.

00:22:42.200 So, you know, we know that we think we can provide support in the digital world.

00:22:49.140 We can provide cooperation in the defense world and just in those two.

00:22:55.620 And there's lots of others, but specifically those two.

00:22:57.680 We're really waiting to see exactly what direction a sovereign Canada is going to go.

00:23:02.580 Ambassador Hoekstra, we'll leave it there.

00:23:04.000 Thank you so much, and we wish you a happy and joyous Independence Day.

00:23:06.820 Hey, great. Thanks. Good to be with you.

00:23:08.320 Thank you.

00:23:08.860 You

Juno News - July 09, 2026

Ambassador Pete Hoekstra claims U.S. tariffs “improved” Canada’s position

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