The U.S. ambassador to Canada gave an optimistic assessment of trade talks between the countries, playing up the odds that a fair deal will emerge soon from negotiations between Donald Trump and Mark Carney.
“We’ve got two guys that are negotiating for each of our countries,” Pete Hoekstra told an audience during an Independence Day party in Ottawa. “When they get done, I’m confident that they can both go back to their people and their citizens and say, ‘I got a great deal for Canada’ — and I think we’ll have a president who will say, ‘I have a great deal for the USA.’”
“That means we have a great win-win.”
The U.S., Canada and Mexico have an existing trade pact that Trump signed during his first term. But the president has sidestepped it and placed import taxes of 50% on foreign steel and aluminum, along with levies on cars and trucks. Canada is a significant exporter of all of those products.
The Canadian government has put counter-tariffs on tens of billions of dollars of U.S.-manufactured items, including vehicles and other consumer products. But Carney, who became Canada’s prime minister in March, opted not to retaliate when Trump increased the tariffs on steel and aluminum weeks ago.
The two leaders have agreed on a July 21 deadline to reach an agreement.
“We’re going to get through this,” said Hoekstra, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan, a state that’s highly dependent on trade with Canada. “When we are done, we are going to be stronger and better than what we were when we began.”
