Canadian agriculture has an enviable track record of making trade deals with foreign countries. Look what trade has done to strengthen so many subsectors of the agri-food industry, from east to west, from row crops to livestock, to fruit and vegetables.   

As the saying goes, a deal is a deal. But when dealing with the leader of our biggest trading partner, U.S. President Donald Trump, there’s a tendency to label whatever gets negotiated and agreed upon in a deal as subject to change, temporary and perhaps meaningless. 

For him, a deal is all about the win. And even if the win is adequate now, at some point, it won’t be. 

In fact, it might not even be remembered, by him. Recall how Trump stumbled and bumbled his way through the 2020 USMCA free trade deal with Canada and Mexico, getting his rear end kicked by then-finance minister Chrystia Freeland. In March of this year, he roundly criticized whoever made that lousy deal. 

Donald, it was you. 

Of course, he didn’t act alone. One of the U.S. architects of USMCA was Jameson Greer, chief of staff to Trump’s first-term trade representative, Robert Lighthizer. But instead of bringing down the hammer on Greer, a former Air Force lawyer, he promoted him to top trade representative in his new cabinet.

It’s odd for Trump to side with those he’d label losers, such as Greer.

However, with Trump, no one’s job is safe, and that tentativeness is only going to grow as Trump seeks scapegoats for his own bad decisions.

He’s still in the honeymoon phase with people he’s promoted like Greer, as well as those waiting in the wings, such as affable nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Peter (goes by “Pete”) Hoekstra of Michigan. 

But if there’s any hope for relief from Trump’s rhetoric on the horizon, it could well lie with Hoekstra, who served as ambassador to The Netherlands during Trump’s first term.

At a pivotal mid-March U.S. Senate confirmation hearing, the 71-year-old Hoekstra was asked by the Democratic chair of the session how he felt about Canada becoming the 51st U.S. state. His answer made it clear that he wasn’t onside with his future boss.

“Canada is a sovereign state,” he said. “I do have a special appreciation for Canada as a neighbour,” he said. 

Of course he does. He’s from Michigan. Even though he’s a dyed-in-the-wool Republican (he served as chair of the Michigan Republican Party last year), he was elected to nine consecutive terms as a Michigan representative and knows Canada very well. He is sensitive to the fact that Ontario and Michigan are joined at the hip for autos, agriculture and so much more – friends and relatives among them. 

And while Hoekstra didn’t deviate much at the hearing from Trump’s America First agenda, he said he would “work tirelessly” to strengthen ties with Canada while still advancing Trump’s safe-border obsession. 

“We have a real history of working together and we know how to make this work,” he said. “Now let's do this and apply our experience to the priorities the president has outlined, freer, fairer trade…to make Canada and the United States safer, stronger and more prosperous."

That’s the most optimistic talk I’ve heard about the Canada-U.S. relationship in months. Surely Hoekstra will have some sway with the U.S. negotiating team.

On the other side of the table, from Canada, agri-food trade negotiations will be led by Matthew Smith, who’s held a range of trade policy and negotiations roles over the past 20 years at Global Affairs Canada and at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Smith has worked on Canada’s trade agreement with the United States and Mexico and represented Canada at meetings of the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization. 

Hopefully Smith and Hoekstra’s relationship reflects the kind of Canada-U.S. trade connectivity that the agri-food sector wants, needs and deserves, for the good of Canadians and Americans alike.