00:00Another place where national policy and state policy, especially your state, very different
00:04right now, relations with America's neighbor to the north, Canada.
00:08You and I have been to Canada together with Mark Carney.
00:12Certainly Illinois has a very important economic relationship with that country.
00:16It is more uncertain today than it was a few months ago than it was a few years ago.
00:21How do you respond to that?
00:23What can be done to undo some of this damage?
00:26How much of it is permanent, in your view?
00:27Well, we have to start with maintaining at least the sub-national relationships.
00:32So the state of Illinois is acting as a, you know, a center of diplomacy with Canada, with
00:40all of the provincial leaders, as well as the national leadership, because very, very important
00:44in this moment for when Canadians are angry, rightfully so, about the U.S. government and
00:52how the government under Trump is treating them and about our trade relationship.
00:58But very important for them to also understand that Americans love Canadians, that we are
01:04as close as any two people can be, not just physically, but in so many other ways.
01:10And that we have to keep reminding them of that, because every day, of course, they are faced
01:16with the news that Donald Trump has done yet something else to insult everybody in Canada
01:21or to actually effectuate some negative economic consequence for both our countries, really,
01:27but for their country.
01:28So I want to, so that's what I, my role, I felt has been, and not just talk, not just
01:34the relationship and diplomacy and protocol, but also discussing what are we going to do
01:40going forward?
01:41Because I don't want us to forget that we're friends, and I want us to make sure that we've
01:46established at least enough of a relationship that when the government in the United States
01:51changes, and I believe that it will change, and I believe it'll be my party in control of
01:55the executive branch in the United States, that we can very immediately try to repair
02:01and improve the relationship between our two countries.
02:05I hate to tell all of you, but I think this is true what I'm about to say.
02:09I don't think it'll ever go back to where it was.
02:12And that is frightening for us to recognize.
02:15I say that with the great hope that it will, or that it will even be better than that.
02:20But I am fearful, because I think what has happened across the world, as you well know,
02:25not just with Canada, is that, you know, it's one thing when we elected Donald Trump in
02:312016, and everybody said, you know, have they gone nuts?
02:35Yeah, democracies sometimes elect somebody that's, you know, out of the norm and changes
02:43things in a temporary fashion, and then restores itself after one term.
02:48It looked like that's what we were doing in the United States.
02:51Instead, what did we do?
02:52We elected him again.
02:54And so where we could have, we could have restored our trusted relationships with people, and
03:01we're on our way to doing that.
03:03Although, again, it's, my grandfather used to say, it's, it takes a lifetime to build up
03:07a good reputation and about five minutes to screw it up.
03:10And, and we kind of did that by electing Trump the first time.
03:15But then when we elected him the second time, we essentially confirmed all the lack of trust
03:19that people were imagining that they should have with the United States, because can't
03:24trust the American people, apparently, to elect somebody who's going to be responsible
03:28about our relationships.
03:29This is a real challenge.
03:30So Canada, as far as I'm concerned, in particular, Canada, because for the state of Illinois, Canada
03:35is our number one trading partner.
03:37And we value that greatly.
03:40We have Canadian companies that are based in, in Illinois.
03:42We have Illinois companies.
03:43We're the second largest region for Fortune 500 companies.
03:47Our Fortune 500 companies are all in Canada, or most of them.
03:50And so this is, you know, we're about as tight as any two places could be.
03:56And it's all being put to the test.
04:00I agree that permanent damage has been done.
04:02But I also think that rebuilding is going to occur.
04:04So, I mean, both of those things can be true.
04:07You've been very vocal about standing up to federal immigration operations in Illinois.
04:13And, you know, especially when we saw a surge of ICE agents.
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