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Pete Hoekstra says U.S. 'does not need Canada'
U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra delivered another blunt assessment of the Canada-U.S. relationship during a wide-ranging radio interview this week, saying the U.S “does not need Canada,” even as he praised the nations’ deep economic relationship.
Hoekstra, speaking with host Elias Makos on Montreal’s CJAD 800 , defended recent rhetoric from President Donald Trump that the U.S. could easily replace Canadian-made products.
“The problem is, we don’t need their product. We don’t need cars made in Canada, we don’t need cars made in Mexico, we want to make them here,” Trump told reporters while visiting a Ford factory in Michigan on Tuesday.
“No, we don’t need Canada,” Hoekstra told Markos when pressed on Trump’s latest comment and similar ones he’s made about lumber, steel, energy and more.
He added, however, that businesses on both sides of the border have elected to integrate their supply chains under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its successor, the Canada-U.S-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), under which they’ve created “a tremendous amount of prosperity and wealth and a tremendous number of high-quality, high-paying jobs.”
During his auto-plant stop, Trump, as he has repeatedly in the past, suggested the deal — which he took credit for instituting in 2016 during his first term in office — wasn’t as important to the U.S. as it is to Canada and Mexico, even calling it “irrelevant.” The agreement requires a mandatory review this year and will be extended for 16 years if all three countries agree to renewal. If they fail to do so, joint reviews will be required annually until CUSMA expires in 2036. Any of the counties is also free to leave as long as they provide six months’ notice to the others.
“Hopefully this fall we will have a new outline of how we do business together and whether those relationships that we have put in place… will foster and grow or whether Canadian companies and American companies will go their separate ways because of the decisions that are made by their governments,” Hoekstra said.
“There are key indications that the president recognizes the value of these relationships, but at the same time… we’ve got to get to a new agreement.”
Makos repeatedly turned to what he described as a growing sense of alienation among Canadians, citing polls showing declining favourability toward the U.S. and boycotts of American products. A Nanos Research Group poll in December found that 70 per cent of Canadians support keeping U.S. wine and spirits off the liquor store shelves, a move made by several provinces and territories as trade tensions mounted in early 2025.
Hoekstra pushed back, saying Canada is free to take whatever steps it believes strengthen its negotiating position, but warned such measures “kind of sets a tone for the relationship.”
“We haven’t banned any Canadian products in America,” he said, noting that the president, his administration and individual governors are not following suit with calls to boycott Canadian goods.
Asked about Trump’s own tone regarding Canada, Hoekstra said, “The president is his own messenger.”
He also accused Canadian premiers of engaging in unwarranted personal attacks on Trump, noting nobody on the American side is doing the same to Prime Minister Mark Carney.
“You have folks that just absolutely trash the president who are key government officials,” Hoekstra said without identifying anyone in particular. “I don’t like it, but if that’s what they want to do, that’s what they can do.”
Unprompted by Makos, the ambassador also touched on the subject of pre-clearance, which allows U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to operate within Canadian airports to inspect and clear travellers before they head to the U.S., allowing them to bypass customs on arrival. He said if air traffic between the two countries continues to drop, as has been widely reported, the U.S. might have to re-examine the program.
“I’d have to report to Washington and say our resources may be better spent somewhere else,” he said. “That’s not a threat. It’s just a pure business analysis.”
As their conversation went on, Hoekstra warned against dumping — the practice of flooding a market with cheap goods. He said if Canada, “as a sovereign country,” wants to do business with China, which is its prerogative, it should expect a U.S. response if Chinese-made products are allowed to enter North America through Canadian channels.
“If you’re allowing EVs and other vehicles to come in from China, I would say don’t necessarily expect that the U.S. border is going to be porous,” he said.
Carney is in China for meetings this week and while no deal had been struck to remove Canadian tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles as of Thursday, the two nations had made progress on items such as energy, lumber and public safety.
Meanwhile, Hoekstra dismissed speculation that the U.S., following on Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland to keep it from falling into Russia or China’s hands, might intervene in Canada’s north. He highlighted the new agreement between the U.S., Canada and Finland to advance the construction of ice breakers to patrol the waterways indicate that the countries “are in lock step.”
Overall, Hoekstra, acknowledging “a little tension” at the moment, struck a reasonably optimistic tone and said he is “hopeful we end up in a good place.”
He said Canadians are welcome to “make it an emotional issue” and “debate the things that the president has said,” but his focus is on what’s good for American business.
“That’s my objective. I’m assuming that Mark Carney and his team are negotiating for what’s best in Canada and in eight or nine months, we’ll see exactly where that ends up.”
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