And If Americans Don’t Like It, Let Them Go Yell At The Guy Who Started All This – Donald Trump
A Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper
Posted June 2nd, 2025 on Niagara At Large
Triump’s U.S. Ambassador To Canada Pete Hoekstra lectures us to “get over it.”
Late this past May, around the same time King Charles was visiting Canada to deliver a Speech from the Throne that, among other things, celebrated our country’s sovereignty, Pete Hoekstra, Trump’s recently appointed ambassador to Canada went out of his way to insult and belittle us as if we were behaving like a nation of errant children.
“Get over it,” Hoekstra told us of our continued strong and unified resistance to Trump’s efforts to crush our economy with punitive trade tariffs and repeated threated to make Canada a “51st state.”
“Move on,” Hoekstra added of the Canadian response to Trump that includes buying Canadian and boycotting products made in the U.S.A. and cancelling visits to the U.S.A. “If the Canadians want to keep talking about it — that’s their business. I’m not talking about it; Donald Trump is not talking about it. We’ve got too much on our plate to move forward because we’re all about increasing America’s prosperity, safety and security.”
Indeed, the part about Trump no longer “talking about it” turned out to be a lie.
Trump’s repeated dream of making Canada a 51st state of the United States
No sooner did the U.S. ambassador get those words out of his mouth, Trump was back at it again, turning to social media with more talk about making Canada a 51st state and days later, threatening to hike tariff’s on Canada’s steel exports to the U.S. from 25 to a crushing 50 per cent that could potentially wipe out thousands of good-paying jobs that support families on our side of the border.
I’ve always understood, from everything I’ve learned about diplomacy between countries, that ambassadors are kept abreast of any plans in the works by the government he serves that may impact the country where they are headquartered.
So either Hoekstra knew that more threats and higher tariffs against Canada were coming down or he is being kept in the dark, in which case he should keep his mouth shut around any finger wagging at us around ‘getting over it.’
This sign appeared earlier this year along a busy street in front of the Unifor union headquarter in St. Catharines, Ontario certainly makes it clear how auto workers here feel about Trump and his tariffs.
It makes this Canadian feel proud to say that growing numbers of us are showing through the purchases we make at our stores and through the significant decline in traffic crossing borders to the United States that we have no plans today or for the foreseeable future to get over it.
I made a visit to one of our Sobeys grocery stores earlier this past weekend where while I was shopping, a few bars of our national anthem blared over the intercom, followed by a voice making us aware that Canadian produce in the store was identified with a red maple leaf sticker on the shelf where it was stocked. I could see customers in the store actively looking for those stickers before picked anything up and put in their carts.
The entrance lanes to the U.S. on the Peace Bridge this past Saturday, May 31th morning – once full of traffic, now almost barren.
And this past Saturday, on a spring morning when, in past years, the lanes on border bridges to the United States usually had long line-ups of trucks and cars, on the Peace Bridge between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York and on the Rainbow Bridge between Niagara Falls, Ontario and Niagara Falls, New York, live cameras on the bridges showed hardly any cars and trucks heading to Trump’s U.S.A.
At least some American communities and businesses are openly saying that the loss of Canadian visitors is hurting them. That is too bad, but let them take their hard-luck stories to Trump and his MAGA puppets like Hoekstra.
A screen shot of the normally busy Rainbow Bridge this past Saturday, May 31st.
Until Trump completely stops waging war on Canada’s economy and sovereignty, if that is even possible with this guy, large numbers of us will refrain from taking trips to the United States and stay home.
And while we are at it, perhaps we should encourage our federal government to send Hoekstra home too since, judging by his conduct so far, his presence in Canada has nothing productive to offer.
Some related links –
To listen to and watch NDP MP Charlie Angus from the Timmins-James Bay area slam Trump’s ambassador to Canada for his “get over it” remark, click on the screen immediately below –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkAg6BQZIvU
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-canada-steel-tariffs-1.7548855
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-canada-steel-tariffs-1.7548855
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