A Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing for ambassador nominees quickly turned to President Donald Trump’s past statements on making Canada the “51st state” and the imposed tariffs on some of the U.S.'s largest trade partners.
Thursday’s hearing featured former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the Trump administration’s pick to be ambassador to Canada, as well as former ambassador to El Salvador Ronald Johnson and former ambassador to Portugal George Glass, who are up for the positions in Mexico and Japan respectively. They’re up for usually quiet roles at a time when the Trump administration has taken aggressive stances toward its neighbors to the north and south.
Sen. Chris Coons asked Hoekstra explicitly if he would “agree that Canada is a sovereign state and should not be even jokingly referred to as the 51st state?”
“Canada is a sovereign state,” Hoekstra said.
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And the ranking member on the committee didn’t lose any time bringing up the fraught relationship.
“The U.S.-Canada bilateral relationship is at a historic low point,” Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said. “I find it very troubling that we are seeing our national anthem booed at ice hockey games, and that the country where we’ve got the longest undefended border in the world, where we have had such a positive relationship over the years, is now viewing America in the way they are because of this president’s statements.”
Shaheen, an outgoing senator, highlighted the proximity of her home state of New Hampshire to the Canadian border, and said Canadians “find it particularly offensive that he’s talking about Canada as the 51st state. And I don’t blame them, I got to be honest.”
Hoekstra, a former ambassador to the Netherlands and former head of the Michigan Republican Party, is credited with helping secure Michigan for Trump in 2024 after the state party saw internal turmoil and a change in leadership at a critical time during the campaign. Soon after Trump secured his win, Hoekstra was offered the plum ambassadorship to Canada.
But it comes at a time when the U.S.-Canada relationship is fraught, as the Trump administration has instituted tariffs and the president has made repeated comments about Canada becoming the 51st state. Those comments have been reiterated by the White House and have received some support from Republicans in Congress.
“We’ve cooperated with Canada on so many things in Michigan,” Hoekstra said. “We have a great history of working together, and we know how to make this work. We now have to make and take that and say we know how to make this work. Now let’s do it, and apply our experience to the priorities that the president has outlined: freer, fairer trade so that we can actually grow the business relationship between Canada.”
Shaheen cut in, asking him if, with the exception of dairy, “tariffs in Canada are not outlandishly restrictive, and we’ve gotten along very well?” She pointed to how the trade relationship had been operating before under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Trump negotiated in his first term. She asked how the trade war was “helping our economy here, and how?”
“The president has outlined a series of priorities related to Canada. Trading free or fair trade with Canada is one,” Hoekstra said. He then sharply pivoted to discussing “a request to work with the United States on the issue of fentanyl.”
Sen. Tim Kaine said he was “troubled by actions in the first couple months that are making some of our friends, including Canada, especially, wonder if, in fact, we recognize the values of friendship that have stretched for centuries.”
Republicans on the committee, meanwhile, were more focused on Mexico, which has also been embroiled in Trump’s back-and-forth tariff policy. The most recent slate of exemptions to tariffs on Mexico are set to expire in early April.
“I’m encouraged by what I’m seeing recently in Mexico. I think there are obviously opportunities to improve,” Johnson said in response to GOP Sen. Pete Ricketts, who asked about securing the border.
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Nuha Dolby is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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