Canada’s top envoy to the US will resign before review of free trade agreement

TORONTO (AP) – Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. for the last six years said Tuesday she’s resigning next year as the two major trading partners plan to review the free trade agreement.

Ambassador Kirsten Hillman said in a letter it is the right time to put in place someone who will oversee talks about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that is up review in 2026.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Hillman “prepared the foundations for Canada in the upcoming review” of the agreement.

Carney noted she’s one of the longest-serving ambassadors to the United States in Canada’s history.

Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent Hillman to the embassy as deputy ambassador in 2017. She became the first woman to represent Canada as ambassador in the U.S. in 2019.

Hillman helped lead the trade negotiations during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term as deputy and as ambassador worked with U.S. and Chinese officials to win the release of two Canadians detained in China.

Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, and Hillman had been leading trade talks with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said on social media that Hillman has been an “awesome and well-respected” contributor to the U.S.-Canada relationship.

“I value your friendship and wish you all the best in your next adventure. You will be missed,” Hoekstra said.

Trump ended trade talks with Carney in October after the Ontario provincial government ran an anti-tariff advertisement in the U.S., which upset the U.S. president. That followed a spring of acrimony, since abated, over Trump’s insistence that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state.

Asked this week when trade talks would resume, Trump said, “we’ll see.”

Canada is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world, and more than 75% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S. Most exports to the U.S. are exempted by the USMCA trade agreement but that deal is up for review.

Carney aims to double non-U.S. trade over the next decade.

About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports as well.

Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.