The U.S. Ambassador decided to sit down with iPolitics this morning.

In a wide-ranging interview for a special episode of iPolitics’ No Talking Points podcast Wednesday, Hoekstra disagreed with suggestions that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s broad support domestically afforded him leverage in talks with the White House.

He said that Trump’s 2024 victory was predicated on his promise to return manufacturing jobs to the U.S. and doubted that the coming votes would undercut support for that agenda.

“What are you going to do when you get to [20]28, and you have no idea who’s going to win. The president won his election on fighting for American jobs. I come from Michigan. We have hollowed-out plants. You have hollowed-out plants in Ohio. There’s a reason they call it the Rust Belt,” Hoekstra said.

“Free trade allows you to access to cheap goods, but it does not stop bad actors from subsidizing certain products, certain industries, and coming into the United States. And the president said, ‘We’re going to protect those jobs. We’re going to stop dumping into the United States.’ And that’s proved to be a very, very powerful political argument.”

It’s widely expected Trump’s Republicans will suffer major losses in the November votes, barring a massive reversal in the polls.

Marco Vigliotti has more. 

Hoekstra also dismissed a petition calling for his removal from Canada, saying his future in the country ultimately rests with U.S. president Donald Trump.

“As long as the president of the United States think I’m doing a good job, I’ll be here,” Hoekstra said.

The official petition came before the House of Commons earlier this summer, calling to declare Hoekstra persona non grata. It has since garnered over 225,000 signatures.

The petition comes amid scrutiny of the ambassador’s ties to Republican political operatives who have reportedly worked with Alberta separatists, as well as criticism over his practice of amplifying Trump’s social media posts about Canada.

Hoekstra rejected suggestions that those connections undermine his role as ambassador, saying some of the operatives previously worked in Republican politics in Michigan and contributed to his campaigns.

More here. 

The CRTC is moving ahead with plans to require foreign streaming services to make Canadian content—including French-language programming—more visible to audiences, days after cultural protections emerged as a flashpoint in failed trade negotiations with the United States.

The federal broadcast regulator confirmed Wednesday it will proceed with developing discoverability requirements under the Online Streaming Act, despite Washington’s objects to Canadian regulations affecting major American streaming companies.

The move comes as cultural groups are urging Ottawa to go further and reconsider an earlier decision to ease separate financial obligations on foreign streamers—a move the sector widely viewed as a concession to Washington.

Earlier this summer, the federal government announced it would move to eliminate a CRTC requirement that major foreign streaming services contribute 15 per cent of their Canadian revenues toward Canadian programming, replacing the contribution with $600 million annually in government funding.

Sydney Ko reports. 

In Other Headlines

Internationally

Donald Trump has downplayed a visit to Moscow by the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, as “semi-routine” after he turned up in the Russian capital unannounced, triggering a wave of speculation about the reasons for his trip.

Ratcliffe was reported to have flown to Moscow on a government transport plane on Tuesday in a rare visit after taking off from the Andrews air force base in Maryland.

The White House, CIA, Pentagon and the US air force all declined to comment on the visit, which was confirmed on Wednesday by a Kremlin spokesperson, Dimitry Peskov.

Interviewed by the conservative radio host Glenn Beck, Trump poured cold water on speculation that Ratcliffe had travelled in response to fears that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was planning to “test Nato resolve” or to win Moscow’s cooperation for intensified US sanctions on Iran.

“None of the above,” the US president said in response to Beck, who referred to the speculation as “crazy”.

The Guardian has more. 

The social media company Meta and the states suing it have agreed to a proposed settlement that would resolve a landmark federal child safety lawsuit and could be a turning point for a wave of lawsuits against social media companies.

California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey represented a larger consortium of states that alleged in the suit that Meta designed its apps — Facebook and Instagram — to be addictive to kids and knew about the risks those platforms posed, but hid that information from the public.

In addition to claims that Meta broke state consumer protection laws, the states accused Meta of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting data about children under the age of 13. Meta has a policy of not allowing kids under 13 on its platforms, but some skirt the rule by registering with false birth dates.