Canada’s Dc Envoy To Exit As Us Trade Talks Stall

OTTAWA — Canada’s ambassador to the United States and its chief trade negotiator with the Trump administration said she is stepping down in the new year.

“I have advised Prime Minister [Mark] Carney that I will be ending my tenure in the United States in the New Year. It has been the greatest privilege of my professional life to have served and represented Canada and Canadians during this critical period in Canada-U.S. relations,” Kirsten Hillman said in her resignation letter posted on X on Tuesday afternoon.

Hillman’s departure comes after eight years in Washington, as the Carney government navigates President Donald Trump’s abrupt cancellation of bilateral trade talks in October and prepares for next year’s review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

“Ambassador Hillman is a class act, we worked closely with her not only in recent years, but even during the original USMCA,” United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Tuesday.

Asked if he thought it would affect Canada-U.S. negotiations, he replied: “I don’t think it will, but she’s a good actor.”

Hillman, a trade lawyer and career diplomat, was a key member of the Canadian negotiating team that faced off against Trump’s first administration during the talks that led to the creation of the USMCA.

“While there will never be a perfect time to leave, this is the right time to put a team in place that will see the CUSMA Review through to its conclusion,” she wrote, using the Canadian acronym for the new North American trade pact.

Despite the current trade disruptions and the aftermath of navigating the Covid-19 pandemic, Hillman said her greatest accomplishment was working to secure the release of two Canadian men who spent more than 1,000 days arbitrarily imprisoned in China from 2018 to 2021.

“In a relationship as deep and complex as ours, pressing and consequential issues arise almost daily,” she wrote. “Yet none was more personal to me than the hundreds of hours I spent with U.S. and Chinese counterparts working for the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.”

Kovrig told POLITICO that “Hillman displayed phenomenal diplomatic skill, dedication, persistence, and integrity in her crucial contributions to resolving the hostage crisis.”

He added: “My family and I are forever grateful for her heroic efforts. She exemplifies the best that our foreign service has to offer.”

Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Hillman “a real patriot who has served Canadians proudly and effectively in the face of unprecedented challenges against our economy and our sovereignty.”

In an X post, Trudeau credited her with resolving trade disputes and building up the economy. She became Canada’s acting ambassador in 2019 before Trudeau appointed her to the job a year later, two weeks into the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hillman was expected to sit down Thursday in Washington for a roundtable discussion with lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee.

She recently told POLITICO that Canada was preparing to push hard for a full 16-year extension of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement when the pact comes up for a mandatory review in 2026.

“We certainly think it’s worth continuing the USMCA,” she said. “It’s been extremely successful for us, but I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s also extremely successful for the United States … and that it contributes to U.S. competitiveness.”

Hillman accompanied then-Prime Minister Trudeau to Mar-a-Lago in November 2024. After their dinner, Trump jumped on social media and mused about Canada becoming the 51st state.

“Many Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State. They would save massively on taxes and military protection,” he said.

Hillman insisted at the time that Canada could take a joke. “We can dish it out. We can take it,” she told POLITICO. “At some level, I actually have to say, we often think of Canada and the United States as being like family, like cousins or siblings.”

Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report from Washington.