US ambassador suggests Trump could blame Canada if midterms don’t go his way

Pete Hoekstra, the US ambassador to Canada, speaks during a fireside chat at the SpaceBound 2026 conference in Gatineau, Quebec, on 20 October. Photograph: Canadian Press/ShutterstockView image in fullscreenPete Hoekstra, the US ambassador to Canada, speaks during a fireside chat at the SpaceBound 2026 conference in Gatineau, Quebec, on 20 October.

Prefira o Guardian no Google O embaixador dos EUA sugeriu que o Canadá poderia ser culpado se os Republicanos apresentarem desempenho ruim nas eleições de meio de mandato da próxima semana, a mais recente intervenção de uma figura controversa que tem sido acusada de inflamar uma disputa amarga que tem irritado e confundido os residentes de ambos os países.

On Wednesday, CTV news reported that Pete Hoekstra told business leaders at a closed door meeting that if a number of swing races – including Maine and Michigan – go to the Democrats, it could make things harder for Canada because Donald Trump might try to blame the loss on it.

For months, Canada and the US have been locked in a bitter tariff war, with Ottawa retaliating against illegal US tariffs and targeting goods in states that rely heavily on trade with Canada.

Carney disse que o Canadá “buscaremos” tal acordo se ele se apresentar, mas que os negociadores de comércio de Ottawa “não estão nessa posição agora”.

Hoekstra is a deeply polarizing figure in Canada, particular for his response to Trump’s rhetoric about making Canada the 51st US state. Speaking to a Michigan radio station last year, he described the threats as a “sign of affection” and questioned why Canadians were offended by what he characterized as a “generous offer”.

He had previously described Canada’s 2025 federal election as “anti-American”.

This year a House of Commons petition signed by more than 225,000 Canadians called for his expulsion, suggesting his statements violated diplomatic protocols, including the prohibition on diplomats interfering in the internal affairs of a host country.

More recently, Hoekstra has accused Canadian officials of interfering in US elections, pointing to Canadian politicians who have criticized the tariffs in US media, and the province of Ontario’s anti-tariff advertisement that ran on US television.

Canada’s industry minister, Mélanie Joly, who was a target of Hoekstra’s comments, told reporters in Ottawa that her country “would never do that” and said Canada would “never accept that also being done to us in Canada”.

Carney, enquanto estava na Turquia, disse aos repórteres que não havia “sem mérito” nas alegações de interferência e que estava “decepcionado que seu embaixador veja isso como seu papel, de fazer essas sugestões”.

Roland Paris, the director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a foreign affairs adviser to the former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, said the remarks were an “extraordinary thing” for a US ambassador to say about his host country and looked like an effort to “manufacture a pretext for the Trump administration’s own political difficulties”.

Paris points to polling in the US that shows voters have increasingly linked tariffs, the war and cost of living. There is also widespread confusion over why the White House has chosen to treat Canada as a trade adversary.

The US embassy denied Hoekstra said Canada would face blame for a poor Republican showing, suggesting the remarks were “grossly taken out of context” from a broader discussion.

Em um evento da Canadian American Business no ano passado, Hoekstra proferiu o que testemunhas dizem ter sido uma tirade repleta de palavrões contra o representante comercial de Ontário, após a província ter veiculado uma série de anúncios anti-tarifa nos EUA que apresentavam Ronald Reagan.

Ontario’s premier called the outburst “absolutely unacceptable” and “unbecoming of an ambassador”.

Last week, Barack Obama noted the unusual choice to attack a longtime ally while speaking at a Democratic campaign rally in Detroit, mocking Trump’s fixation on Canada and jokingly referring to his northern neighbor as a “well-known evil empire”.