During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Thursday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) spoke about mending relations with Canada amid recent tensions over tariffs.
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NewsTranscript
00:00With that, Senator Shaheen.
00:02Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:04Ambassador, Congressman Hoekstra,
00:08the U.S.-Canada bilateral relationship is at a historic low point.
00:13Recent polling in Canada showed that 75% of Canadians
00:18have an unfavorable opinion of President Trump
00:21and 27% view the U.S. as an enemy.
00:27Only 30% still view the U.S. as an ally.
00:32I come from a state that borders Canada.
00:36I know when you were in Congress,
00:38you represented a district that bordered Canada.
00:41We have the highest percentage of Canadian Americans
00:44of any state in the country.
00:46I find it very troubling that we are seeing
00:51our national anthem booed at ice hockey games
00:56and that the country where we've got
01:01the longest undefended border in the world,
01:04where we have had such a positive relationship over the years,
01:08is now viewing America in the way they are
01:12because of this president's statements.
01:16They find it particularly offensive
01:18that he's talking about Canada as the 51st state.
01:22And I don't blame him, I've got to be honest.
01:25So how do you...
01:28I appreciated your opening statement
01:31and your talking about the importance of Canada
01:34to the United States,
01:36but how do you see approaching turning around
01:39that negative relationship that has developed
01:44because of the president's statements
01:46and how do you envision addressing tariff issues?
01:52It's a great question.
01:54Obviously I've been spending a lot of time thinking about that myself,
01:57pending the confirmation by the Senate
02:00of having to go there and being kind of the tip of the spear on this.
02:06I experienced similar things when I went to the Netherlands.
02:09There was a lot of hostility or concern
02:13about some of the objectives of the first Trump administration,
02:17which were really about fairness.
02:20Getting the Dutch to pay for NATO.
02:25Working with the Dutch to confront Russia on Nord Stream, the pipeline.
02:30The Dutch are great with water, they have money,
02:33so they were helping build it and to finance it.
02:36And what we really spent a tremendous amount of time on
02:39is focusing on the strength of the relationship
02:44between our two countries.
02:46Your state, my state, we have thousands of people,
02:49thousands of businesses that rely on this relationship.
02:52They see what's going on at 30,000 feet,
02:57but they've got to go to work every day
03:01and they need to make this work.
03:03We have cooperated with Canada on so many things.
03:08In Michigan, it's the Great Lakes that's important to us.
03:11It's trade, it's business.
03:13My experience on the Intel Committee,
03:15it is about NATO and those types of things.
03:18Canada is part of Five Eyes.
03:20So we have a great history of working together
03:23and we know how to make this work.
03:25We now have to make and take that and say,
03:27we know how to make this work,
03:29now let's do it and apply our experience
03:33to the priorities that the President has outlined.
03:37Freer, fairer trade,
03:40so that we can actually grow the business relationship
03:43between Canada and the U.S.
03:45Excuse me for interrupting, but isn't it true
03:47that Canada has one of the lowest tariff regimes
03:50of any country in the world,
03:52and that with the exception of dairy,
03:54which the President has pointed out
03:56and which I know we're still working on,
03:58that actually the tariffs in Canada
04:01are not outlandishly restrictive
04:05and we've gotten along very well.
04:07I have small businesses in New Hampshire.
04:09One in particular called me over the weekend.
04:13They make sugar-free candy.
04:17They have a retail store in one community
04:20and a factory in another.
04:22They do 85% of their business with Canada
04:24and Canada has now canceled all of their orders.
04:27So they're not sure they're going to be able to continue to operate.
04:30And I hear that story time and time again
04:33from small businesses in New Hampshire.
04:35So how is this trade war helping our economy here
04:40and what are the metrics that the President has
04:46that say that when Canada and the United States
04:49reach this agreement that we're going to stop the trade war?
04:53Because everybody's operating, or we thought we were operating,
04:56under an agreement that the President actually negotiated
05:00when he was in his first term
05:02and credited as being the best trade agreement
05:06ever negotiated in the United States.
05:10Thanks for the follow-up.
05:12The President has outlined a series of priorities
05:16relating to Canada.
05:18Trade in free or fairer trade with Canada is one.
05:21Also, a request to work with the United States
05:26on the issue of fentanyl,
05:28something that I know is a very important issue in New Hampshire.
05:31Across the country, we lose 55,000 people per year.
05:34We do, absolutely.
05:36And we have less than 1% of the fentanyl
05:38that comes into this country comes from Canada.
05:40They actually, last year, interdicted more drugs
05:44from the United States than we interdicted from Canada.
05:47And, you know, I agree.
05:49We need to get rid of all fentanyl, and that's important.
05:52But let's be honest about what's happening here.
05:55I'm sorry I'm over time.