Donald Trump’s choice for ambassador to Canada affirmed that country’s status as a sovereign nation and hinted the president’s complex relationship with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau might have played a role in his calls to annex it into the U.S.
“Canada is a sovereign state, yes,” Pete Hoekstra said with a wry look when asked by Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, during his confirmation hearing Thursday.
“How the president and the relationship between the former prime minister in Canada, the characteristics and nature of that relationship — I don’t know, was it one where there was humor,” Hoekstra went on to say, before Coons interrupted him.
“I view as a positive, sir, that we have a new prime minister in Canada and a chance for a reset,” Coons said. Mark Carney, the new leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, is set to succeed Trudeau as prime minister on Friday.
Hoekstra, a former congressman from Michigan and an ambassador to the Netherlands during the first Trump term, appeared to play down the president’s frequent insistence that Canada become the 51st US state. In a social media post earlier this week, Trump said making Canada a state was “the only thing that makes sense,” and then in the Oval Office on Thursday, he said it “only works as a state.”
“As a state it would be one of the great states, this would be the most incredible country visually,” Trump said, going on to assert that the US-Canada border is just a line arbitrarily drawn on a map.
Canada is America’s second-largest trading partner and its ally in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But Trump has escalated pressure on America’s northern neighbor, provoking a trade war with a levy of fresh 25% tariffs on a wide variety of Canadian products despite their free-trade agreement.
Trump has made Canada’s sovereignty a conversation topic ever since a dinner with Trudeau in November after which he called his counterpart the “governor” of the “Great State of Canada.” Canadian officials said after the dinner that Trump’s comments appeared to be a joke. But they’ve provoked increasing anger north of the border the longer that he repeats them.
The back and forth comes at an awkward time for the two countries. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Charlevoix, Quebec, on Thursday for a meeting of Group of Seven foreign ministers, meeting alongside Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly.
“I’m hopeful that casual threats will stop,” Coons told Hoekstra.
“I will continue to press for a reduction in some of the rhetoric that I think has destabilized our relationship,” Coons said.
Eric Martin, Bloomberg News
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