While President Donald Trump is amping up tariffs on Canada in an effort to rebalance the global trade order, Canada has taken a drastic retaliatory step that has been called out by U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra.
"I think it's outrageous that you banned American products from your shelves," Hoekstra told Politico Magazine in a Q&A this week.
"That is an insult to us. We have not done anything like that."
Tariffs is one thing, but their intent was to reduce trade barriers placed on the U.S. worldwide, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Newsmax last month.
Instead, Canada's answer to tariffs is to increase trade barriers on the U.S.
"Do you really want to ban Americans from procurement projects?" Hoekstra, a House GOP representative in Michigan, said. "We haven’t banned any Canadian products.
"We haven't said Canadian companies can't bid for projects. Canadians want to travel to the U.S.? That's an individual choice. That's not our government's choice. That's individual Canadian choices."
Outside of trade, Canada is not proving reliable on defense spending either, Hoekstra noted.
"I don't want to spend a bunch of time talking about the irritants in our relationship because there are two sides to this story in terms of irritants – and there are some on our side that maybe go back 20, 25 years," he continued. "You don't want to talk about military spending.
"We appreciate all the sacrifices that Canada shared with us in Afghanistan. Those types of things.
"But you agreed in 2014 that you would move to 2% [of GDP on defense spending].
"We are now in 2025, you're nowhere close. That could be a huge irritant to American taxpayers.
"But we didn't, say kick Canadian products off our shelves."
NATO is planning to upgrade defense spending requirements up to 5%, yet Canada has long refused to honor the 2% commitment.
"The president is very interested in critical minerals," Hoekstra said. "He's very interested in energy. He's fascinated, and he loves, he loves Michigan, he loves autos. You know what the benchmarks are, and you know that he cares about 2%. He cares deeply about 2%."
New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has his work cut out for him in his new government, so time will determine how the trade war unfolds, particularly with regard to defense as the NATO summit in June might vote to up defense spending to the 5% levels sought by Trump amid the war in Ukraine and longtime stragglers like Canada.
"It depends on when he comes back with 2%," Hoekstra said. "If he comes back with 2% on May 29, he's in a good spot. If he has a plan to get there before 2030, he's in a better position, but he is going to have to recognize that on June 30, NATO and [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio and the president may come back to him and say, Oh, well, it'll happen before that.' The number only goes up if there's a unanimous vote in NATO.
"That's the state of play. Whatever NATO decides."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.