Freeland respected by counterparts, ambassador says
Trump blaming minister for current impasse in NAFTA negotiations
OTTAWA— The United States ambassador to Canada says Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is “highly respected” by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and his NAFTA negotiating team, in sharp contrast to remarks made by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Kelly Craft said Freeland has been personally very helpful to her since she arrived last October as Trump’s envoy to Canada and that Freeland has earned the respect of the U.S. team for her conduct in the negotiations.
Craft’s defence of Freeland, who she described as someone who had become a friend, came less than two hours after Trump appeared to blame Freeland personally for the impasse in negotiations to rewrite the North American free trade pact.
Trump told a news conference Wednesday evening that he rejected a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau because he doesn’t like Canada’s approach to renegotiating NAFTA, doesn’t like its stance on dairy tariffs and doesn’t like Canada’s “representative” in the trade talks.
Freeland was hand-picked by Trudeau to act as the political lead for Canada’s negotiating team and is the direct counterpart to Lighthizer.
“We are very unhappy with the negotiations and the negotiating style of Canada. We don’t like their representative very much,” Trump said.
Craft responded to the Star’s questions about Trump’s remarks later on Wednesday evening, during a reception she hosted at her official embassy residence.
While the ambassador said she had not seen the full news conference, she was quick to express admiration and friendship for Freeland.
Craft said that she respected her, as did Lighthizer and the U.S. team.
She said Freeland was generous with her time when Craft was first posted here and has explained the complexities of Canada’s supply management system to her.
However, Craft also said that Lighthizer and Trump are completely in agreement on the substance of NAFTA talks.
“There is no daylight between President Trump and Bob Lighthizer at the NAFTA table,” she said, adding that Trump is a businessman who cares about working people and American farmers.
“He deeply understands the complex issues” like dairy which are in play and suggested it would be a mistake for anyone to believe otherwise. The Canadian government had no immediate reaction to Trump’s attack on Freeland Wednesday night, other than to say it has not requested a meeting between Trump and Trudeau while both were in New York for United Nations meetings.
But on Thursday, Trudeau left little doubt he has full confidence in his minister.
“I think that she is ensuring that Canadians are well-defended in our interests and she will continue to be,” he said.
“If our negotiators are doing their jobs, they are doing a good job to make sure that we’re standing up for Canadian values and interests.”
Craft’s praise for Freeland was echoed by her predecessor as U.S. ambassador to Canada.
“I can say as the US Ambassador I had the privilege to work w/ her & she is a consummate professional and good friend,” Bruce Heyman tweeted Wednesday evening.
Freeland remained in New York on Thursday where she attended events on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meetings.
There have been reports that the White House was angered by Freeland’s speech in Washington when she accepted a “Diplomat of the Year” award from the Foreign Policy forum.
In that speech, she urged the U.S. to reject the idea “that might made right.”
“You may feel today that your size allows you to go mano-amano with your traditional ad- versaries and be guaranteed to win,” Freeland said on June 13. “But if history tells us one thing, it is that no one nation’s preeminence is eternal.”
Trump’s apparent antipathy toward Freeland may have been fuelled by critical coverage in the right-wing publication the Daily Caller, which Trump is known to read, that highlighted Freeland’s recent participation in a public forum in Toronto entitled “Taking on the Tyrant.”
Trump, who appeared to give Trudeau a brush-off with a brief handshake and declining to stand to greet him at a New York luncheon on Tuesday, told reporters he rejected meeting the Canadian prime minister “because his tariffs are too high and he doesn’t seem to want to move and I’ve told him forget about it.
“And frankly we’re thinking about just taxing cars coming in from Canada. That’s the motherlode. That’s the big one.”