Canada is “one of the best places in the world” for America to buy oil from, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said on Monday just days before more U.S.-forced labour tariffs are set to hit Canada — on top of sectoral ones now in place for more than a year.
During a panel at the Pacific Northwest Economic Region annual summit, Hoekstra was asked to clarify comments U.S. President Donald Trump has made that the U.S. doesn’t “need” Canadian oil.
“(When) the president says, ‘We don’t need your oil,’ we need oil but we don’t necessarily need it from Canada,” Hoekstra said.
However, he added that Canada was a preferred supplier for the U.S.
“We have found over the last couple of decades that one of the best places in the world to get oil from is Canada. It’s close by. The people that we have to work with in Alberta are great business partners. They’re good business people,” he said.
“Probably the region that can make the most compelling case for supplying more oil to the United States would be Saskatchewan and Alberta,” Hoekstra added.
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Trump has repeatedly said the U.S. does not need Canadian products, including oil and gas.
“We don’t need them to make our cars, and they make a lot of them. We don’t need their lumber because we have our own forests. We don’t need their oil and gas. We have more than anybody,” Trump said in January during the World Economic Forum in Davos.
On July 1, the U.S. trade representative said Washington would not renew the Canada-U.S. Mexico Free Trade Agreement (known as CUSMA in Canada and USMCA in the U.S.) in its current form.
“The president and his team have clearly indicated that they don’t see it in the best interest (of the U.S.) to extend USMCA. They’re continuing to have discussions, and we’ll see where they end up. But there has to be some framework of an agreement,” Hoekstra said.
U.S. trade representatives were “knocking down the issues with Mexico” in trade talks, but negotiations with Canada were “at a different level,” he added.
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