Freeland, Lighthizer: A study in contrast
Trump’s trade gripes reveal enmity between Freeland and Lighthizer
He’s a hunting and golfing Republican lawyer with a caustic funny bone that some say verges on the misogynistic.
She’s a highly educated ex-journalist whose mother founded a feminist-socialist co-operative and who rides her bicycle to work.
The clash of personalities and world views represented by Robert Lighthizer and Chrystia Freeland, the top U.S. and Canadian NAFTA negotiators, has been muttered about off the record for months.
But U.S. President Donald Trump seemed to out their reportedly tense relationship this week, complaining in surprising public comments that his administration disliked Canada’s representative in the log-jammed trade talks.
Trump didn’t name Freeland, but evidence of conflict is apparent. The Liberal foreign affairs minister’s criticisms of Trump policies have reportedly angered the president, while Lighthizer is famously prickly and protectionist.
“We are very unhappy with the negotiations and the negotiating style of Canada. We don’t like their representative very much,” Trump said during a wide-ranging news conference.
Some analysts believe Canada has made missteps that needlessly antagonized the Oval Office’s mercurial occupant and his negotiators, others that the tension is a natural byproduct of prolonged trade negotiations.
Regardless, there appears now to be a “breakdown in trust” at the talks, said Dan Ujczo, a trade lawyer with the firm DickinsonWright who is regularly briefed on the process. He points to various factors, including long-simmering tensions between both countries’ professional negotiators that predate Freeland, and Canada’s challenges of the States at the World Trade Organization.
“We have heard from multiple officials in the U.S. administration that there is a concern ‘Canada has moved the goalposts,’ ” Ujczo said. “On the Canadian side, we are hearing the exact same phrase.”
“Bad feelings and no trust equals no deal,” he added.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and Mexico are widely expected to release the text of their bilateral trade deal Friday, ahead of an Oct. 1 deadline. However, talks could still resume over the next few days with Canada to try to resolve differences and bring it into the accord by month’s end, the analyst said.
Word of enmity between Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative, and Freeland first surfaced in the summer, as the U.S. began what turned out to be a five-week run of talks with Mexico that excluded Canada.
One source in contact with both sides’ officials said at the time that Lighthizer did not appreciate Canada’s lobbying of Congress members, what he considered an “end-run” behind his back.
“Lighthizer can’t stand her,” the person said.
The USTR later issued the National Post a statement denying there were ill feelings, stating that Trump’s top trade official considers Freeland a “good friend” who is doing an “amazing job for Canada.”
But they are clearly disparate figures. Lighthizer, 70, from a rustbelt Ohio town, has been a Republican staff member, a Reagan-era trade official and private-practice lawyer. He takes yearly pheasanthunting trips, is an avid golfer and has a “wicked” — if sexist — sense of humour, say acquaintances who variously call him “delightful” and “very hard edged.”
Freeland, 50, is the granddaughter of Ukrainian immigrants. Armed with degrees from Harvard and Oxford and speaking multiple languages, she forged a successful, globe-trotting career in journalism.
Her 2012 book Plutocrats documented the growing concentration of wealth among the super-rich.
As NAFTA talks continued, Freeland has given speeches and media interviews lamenting the Trump administration’s retreat from the postwar global liberal order. She reportedly antagonized the White House this month when she took part in a panel discussion, Taking on the Tyrant, that juxtaposed images of Trump with those of dictators like Syria’s Bashar Assad.
“I think that has hurt,” said Gary Hufbauer, a former U.S. trade official and a fellow with Washington’s Peterson Institute of International Economics. “I was surprised that Canada engaged to the extent it did in criticizing Trump, because he notices every slight.”
But Hufbauer says Trump’s public put-down of a close ally’s trade negotiators was an unprecedented affront, and the presence of tensions was nothing unusual.
“Lighthizer is fighting very hard for his country and for his point of view, and Freeland is fighting hard for her country and point of view,” echoed Eric Miller, a Washingtonbased trade consultant. “That necessarily means they will clash.”
David MacNaughton, Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., acknowledged this week that the NAFTA talks have at times been “quite intense and tense” lately.
“But I wouldn’t overemphasize personal differences,” he told an event Wednesday at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. “Bob Lighthizer is a real pro … I get along with him well personally, and whenever we have a real difficult moment, I try to change the conversation to golf.”
Jerry Dias, president of the Unifor union and in close contact with Canada’s NAFTA negotiators, likened the talks to labour haggling and said personal clashes are inevitable. “The fact that (Trump) is frustrated over the fact we are bargaining hard gives me immense pride,” he said.