Donald Trump’s prosperity, security and security agenda will also be good for Canada, says Pete Hoekstra, the United States ambassador to Canada.
“I am optimistic about where this relationship is,” he said at an Empire Club event in Centro de Toronto on Tuesday. “I am more optimistic about where I think this relationship is going.”
But minutes later, after Hoekstra sat down to talk with Lisa Raitt, vice president of the global investment bank in CIBC Capital Markets, asked if the state of the relationship was what he expected.
“Yes, I am disappointed that part of the rhetoric has gone to where it has,” he said. “But that’s why I come and give an optimistic message.”
Hoekstra did not explain what “rhetoric” was disappointing, but said it is optimistic because Trump and the secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick are managing the commercial relationship of Canada-United States, which means that a new agreement to restore business relations could occur quickly.
However, Raitt said that “rhetoric goes both ways” and that Trump continues to talk about Canada’s sovereignty. Last week, the president suggested once again that Canada could become a state 51 while arguing the creation of a Golden Dome defense system.
Hoekstra did not directly address the matter, but said that Prime Minister Mark Carney and Trump had a productive meeting earlier this year at the White House and have open communication lines.
He said that Trump, whom he called “a transformative president”, believes that “it is absolutely essential that there are certain central industries in which Americans and the United States can trust the country”, and that is the political objective of tariffs that affect Canadian goods.
Hoekstra also said that tariffs could open opportunities for Canada, but refused to say how. Instead, he said that there are talented people who “work” everything.
“When intelligent people enter a room and negotiate, they will go out with a good income or, apologize, a good result that we are all going to look and say: ‘HMM, (there are) things that I really like. I could be uncomfortable with a couple, but there are some things here in which I have never thought,” he said.
Hoekstra said he entered politics in 1992 without experience and little interest in politics. However, he won a seat at the House of Representatives of the United States in Michigan.
Once chosen, he said that he caught the attention of Newt Giningrich, the “last transformation figure in American politics”, with whom he helped prepare the contract for the United States, a republican plan that focused on reducing the size of the government, reducing taxes, grievance and well -being reform, and balance the budget.
Now, Trump is trying to achieve similar goals, he said.
“That is the transforming agenda that Donald Trump is pressing: prosperity, security and security,” said Hoekstra. “That is good for the United States and that is good for our neighbors to the north.”
• Email: gfriedman@postmedia.com
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