The American Diplomat: A Disruption Strategy

A Fair & Furious dive into Pete Hoekstra: who he is, what he’s done, and why his approach as U.S. ambassador is a deliberate disruption that Canadians need to face.

What if the United States sent an ambassador to Canada whose real goal wasn’t to build goodwill, but to undermine it?

Because Pete Hoekstra is absolutely nailing it!

Since being appointed U.S. Ambassador to Canada on April 29, 2025, Hoekstra has been a very visible and combative presence in our national conversation. In fact, he’s been more visible than any previous U.S. ambassador to Canada. He’s spoken at Canadian business events, given media interviews, and commented on our political choices, national symbols, and consumer decisions. Almost everywhere he appears, his message is basically the same: Canada is the problem here. Get over it.

This is not what diplomacy looks like. And the pattern of behaviour raises a question that Canadian media, Canadian business leaders, and frankly all of us should be asking out loud:

Is Hoekstra here to represent the United States to Canada, or to represent the Trump administration’s interests against Canada?

Let’s tally up the receipts.

“Mean and Nasty”: On Canadians Defending Themselves

When Canadians began boycotting American products and cancelling cross-border travel in response to Trump’s tariff threats and annexation rhetoric, it wasn’t a small thing. Statistics Canada reported a nearly 32% drop in Canadians returning by car from the U.S. in March 2025—the steepest decline since COVID. People were making a personal, economic, democratic choice: not with our money, thanks.

Hoekstra’s response? He told an American audience at the Pacific Northwest Economic Region summit in Bellevue, Washington, that there are “reasons why the president and some of his team referred to Canada as being mean and nasty to deal with”—and that boycotts and alcohol bans were those reasons.

To be clear: Canadians choosing not to vacation somewhere or buy certain products is a peaceful, legal expression of economic dissent. Calling it “mean and nasty” to an American crowd, about the allied country he’s supposed to be cultivating goodwill with, is not diplomacy. It’s provocation dressed up in a suit.

For the record, Hoekstra then mentioned he has no trouble personally smuggling U.S. alcohol across the border, since border officers don’t check his car; drawing laughter from the crowd. The man whose job is to represent U.S.-Canada relations bragged about circumventing Canadian import rules as a punchline.

The Tirade at the National Gallery

If the “mean and nasty” remarks were a slow burn, what happened at the Canadian American Business Council gala at Ottawa’s National Gallery on October 28, 2025, was a bonfire.

In a room of over 200 prominent Canadian and American business leaders, Hoekstra confronted Ontario’s trade representative, David Paterson, with an expletive-laced tirade — using the F-word (allegedly drunkenly unloaded a “Canada is a F***** Joke”), invoking Premier Doug Ford by name, and reportedly raging about Ontario’s anti-tariff ad campaign. Paterson remained calm. The U.S. Embassy declined to comment.

Even Ford, known for his own blunt talk, noted the behaviour was “absolutely unacceptable” and “unbecoming of an ambassador.” He publicly called on Hoekstra to phone Paterson and apologize. “The cheese slipped off the cracker,” Ford said, generously.

Earlier that same day, Hoekstra had told a different event that Canada had “burnt the bridges with America” and that “Donald Trump did not slam the door.” This is the same Trump administration that threatened annexation, imposed sweeping tariffs, and then cut off trade negotiations entirely over an ad featuring Ronald Reagan talking about the downsides of protectionism.

But sure. We, Canada, burnt the bridges.

Gaslighting as a Job Description

The tirade and the “mean and nasty” comments are dramatic. Most Canadian’s roll their eyes and move on. But they’re part of a quieter, more consistent pattern that deserves attention: Hoekstra routinely frames Canadian reactions to American aggression as the source of the problem.

When the Canadian government issued a travel advisory warning Canadians about possible device searches and detentions at the U.S. border, Hoekstra publicly called reported incidents “isolated” and insisted device searches are “not a pattern”; language widely seen as dismissive of genuine, documented concerns. He did not address why those concerns existed in the first place.

When King Charles planned a visit to Canada, a visit with constitutional and cultural significance for us as a Commonwealth member and constitutional monarchy, Hoekstra made patronizing public remarks suggesting the annexation threat was in Canadians’ heads and that we should “move on.” He also referred to our Prime Minister simply as “Carney”, skipping the title. Basic diplomatic courtesy. Not optional.

When Ontario ran a $75-million anti-tariff ad campaign featuring Ronald Reagan arguing against protectionism, Hoekstra called it “foreign interference in electoral politics”; a remarkable position from the representative of an administration that has openly threatened Canada’s sovereignty, interfered in our federal election discourse, and whose own national security strategy states the U.S. will “reward and encourage” foreign governments, parties, and movements aligned with its values.

When asked about that same national security strategy and whether it might lead to U.S. meddling in Canadian politics, Hoekstra’s response was: “Let’s just kind of see how this plays out.”

Yeah, we’re not going to sleep well on “wait and see.”

This Isn’t His First Rodeo

Here’s where things get important, because Hoekstra’s conduct in Canada isn’t an isolated case of someone having a bad year in a stressful job. It fits a pattern going back decades.

• WMD Claims: As Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Hoekstra actively promoted misleading claims that Iraq had active weapons of mass destruction, even after Pentagon and intelligence findings had contradicted that narrative. Not a mistake someone in that role makes accidentally.

  
  

• The Netherlands, Act One: In 2015, Hoekstra claimed at a conference that the “Islamic movement” had put the Netherlands into chaos, with cars being burned, politicians being burned, and “no-go zones” where non-Muslims couldn’t go. None of this was true. There was no evidence for any of it. It was a lie intentionally planted by a diplomat.

  
  

• The Netherlands, Act Two: When he was appointed Trump’s ambassador to the Netherlands in 2017, and a Dutch journalist asked him about those comments, Hoekstra flatly denied having said them. Called it “fake news.” Then the journalist played him the clip. Hoekstra then denied having said “fake news” moments after saying it, taking a page from the Trump administration playbook.

• The Netherlands, Act Three: When Dutch reporters pressed him at a formal press conference — “Are politicians being burned in the Netherlands? Is that something you believe? Yes or no?” — Hoekstra refused to answer and tried to change the subject. “This is the Netherlands,” one reporter told him. “You have to answer questions.”

  
  

  He eventually issued a Twitter apology, then told a Dutch newspaper he’d “mixed up countries,” though he couldn’t explain how. The State Department declined to call his statements factually inaccurate.

  He also, while ambassador to the Netherlands, hosted a fundraising event at the U.S. Embassy for Forum for Democracy, a far-right Dutch political party, an act widely condemned as political interference, potentially in violation of the Vienna Convention. Dutch lawmakers demanded answers.

This is the man Donald Trump chose to send to Canada.

The Confirmation Hearing Gap

There’s another thing worth mentioning, something that should bother people across the political spectrum.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Hoekstra affirmed that “Canada is a sovereign state.” Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) pushed back on the administration’s justifications for tariffs and annexation rhetoric, noting that the volume of fentanyl entering the U.S. from Canada is minimal, that Canada maintains one of the lowest tariff regimes, and that her own state is experiencing real harm from the administration’s actions.

So Hoekstra went into his confirmation acknowledging Canadian sovereignty. And then he arrived here and has spent months dismissing it, minimizing threats to it, and telling us to get over concerns that are both legitimate and documented.

Either he wasn’t being honest at his confirmation hearing, or his approach to this posting has been shaped by something (or someone) other than the diplomatic mandate he was given.

A Question for Canadian Media

We should be direct about something.

Hoekstra has received an extraordinary amount of Canadian media coverage, more than any U.S. ambassador to Canada has historically. There’s a reasonable argument that this coverage has served his purposes. Every interview that lets him reframe Canada as the aggressor, every platform that broadcasts his “get over it” messaging to Canadian audiences, effectively gives a megaphone to what looks a lot like a coordinated destabilization effort.

That’s not to say journalists shouldn’t report on him. Of course they should. But there’s a difference between covering an ambassador and platforming one.

When his remarks go largely unchallenged in real time, when he’s invited to keynotes and galas and given warm introductions, we’re helping him do his job; and his job, based on the evidence, is not diplomacy.

It’s worth asking: should Canadian media hold Hoekstra to the same standard Dutch journalists held him to in 2018?

Because those reporters who told him plainly, “This is the Netherlands, you have to answer questions,” modelled exactly what accountability journalism looks like. They didn’t let him deflect. They didn’t let him move on. They made him sit with what he’d said until he had to either defend it or retract it.

We can do that too.

What This Means for All of Us

If you’re Canadian and you’ve been feeling like the U.S.-Canada relationship is being deliberately destabilized, you’re not imagining it, and you’re not being paranoid. The pattern is documented. The history is documented. And the person currently holding the title of U.S. Ambassador to Canada has a record of spreading misinformation, denying his own words when confronted, interfering in the domestic politics of the countries he’s posted to, and treating accountability as something to be waited out rather than honoured.

If you’re a Canadian conservative who believes in national sovereignty, that applies to you too. Foreign interference in Canadian politics is not a partisan issue. An American ambassador telling us how to respond to American threats, dismissing our concerns as overreactions, and calling our peaceful economic choices “mean and nasty” is not a friend. That’s a bully with a business card.

And if you’re an American reading this who’s frustrated with your government and what it’s doing to its oldest ally, know that most Canadians understand the difference between the American people and the American administration. We’re not confused about who our friends are. We’re just watching, carefully, what your government is doing to us, and hope more Americans are paying attention too.

Pete Hoekstra is not a rogue actor having a hard few months; he’s a seasoned bad actor, and he’s hardly alone. Other Trump-appointed ambassadors have been acting notably undiplomatically in their postings since their appointments.

But Hoekstra is a known quantity with a documented track record, appointed by an administration that has been explicit about viewing Canada as an economic and political target. His behaviour here is consistent with everything he’s done before. And that should concern all of us, not because it’s surprising, but because we’ve been here before.

He got away with it in the Netherlands, eventually, with a vague tweet and a “mixed-up countries” shrug.

We don’t have to let that playbook work here. We have quiet diplomacy and using the media in the way it’s supposed to work. If Hoekstra can’t serve his ambassadorial role appropriately, there are three important words we should all keep in mind: persona non grata.