New U.S. envoy promises ‘old-school’ manners
NEW U.S. ENVOY HAS NO HIGH-LEVEL DIPLOMATIC EXPERIENCE, BUT PROMISES ‘OLDSCHOOL’ MANNERS
By her own admission, Kelly Craft doesn’t yet know much about Canada. The new U.S. ambassador arrived in Ottawa last Saturday and her acquaintance with the capital has been limited to a jog along the canal and a short trip to Rideau Hall Monday to present her credentials to Governor General Julie Payette.
The walls of Lornado, the grand official residence overlooking the Ottawa River, are as bare as they were when her predecessor Bruce Heyman moved out after Donald Trump’s inauguration last January.
But the Kentucky native said she has an innate understanding about the importance of the Canada-U.S. relationship.
Canada is Kentucky’s number one trading partner, with 100,000 jobs in the state dependent on two-way trade worth $15 billion in goods like auto parts and dog food (Edmonton-based Champion Petfoods has a plant in Auburn and there’s even a Tim Hortons in Erlanger). Interestingly, Kentucky has a trade surplus.
“I would like to take that and expand it by making certain we continue to thin our border,” she told the National Post in her first Canadian print interview since being named ambassador. “We are committed to maintaining the relationship. We want to treat our neighbours as we treat ourselves. The golden rule is we want Canadians to be as successful as Americans.”
That is a very different message to the one sent by Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative, at the end of last week’s round of negotiations, when he said he was disappointed by the “resistance to change” from Canada and Mexico.
The impasse at the negotiating table led Global Affairs minister Chrystia Freeland to accuse the U.S. of having a “winner-takes-all mentality” that was undermining NAFTA rather than modernizing it.
The unspoken accusation was that the Americans were negotiating in bad faith.
The new ambassador denies the charge categorically. “As the representative of the U.S. in Canada, absolutely we are committed,” she said.
Knight Craft and her husband, coal magnate Joseph Craft, were major contributors to Donald Trump’s campaign in the U.S. general election, though they previously supported Marco Rubio in the Republican primaries. Her patronage appointment follows in the tradition of recent U.S. ambassadors in Canada. Her two immediate predecessors, David Jacobson and Heyman, were both fundraisers for Barack Obama.
The advantage for Canada is that the ambassador of the day has a hotline to the president.
I asked if there was an issue she needed to raise with Trump whether she would go through the State Department or call the president directly. “I would not abuse picking up the phone to call the White House, but I would do so,” she said.
Critics will have a field day with the appointment.
Knight Craft is a spectator when it comes to many of the ticklish Canada-U.S. issues — she demurred on both the Bombardier and softwood lumber files, pointing out they are handled by the U.S. commerce department.
While she was appointed by George W. Bush to be a U.S. delegate at the United Nations, she has no highlevel diplomatic experience.
Her husband is the president of the third-biggest coal mining company in the U.S. and has lamented that limiting carbon emissions could hurt the coal business — not a message likely to play well with a Liberal government that has pledged to phase out coal generation by 2030.
But Knight Craft is personable and apparently aware of what she doesn’t know.
“I’m going to bring some Southern hospitality — that can carry you a long way — as well as old-school manners. I will be very inviting and transparent. I’m going to be a great listener,” she said.
It’s a contrast to her president, the voluble New York real-estate magnate, who is more used to sending than receiving.
At a time when Canadian views of the U.S. are at an all-time low, old-school manners may be exactly what is required.
As relations deteriorate around the negotiating table, Knight Craft’s importance as a mediator and conduit between the Trudeau government and Trump administration is only likely to grow.