Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
Prime Minister Mark Carney has named ex-BlackRock executive Mark Wiseman as Canadian ambassador to Washington, as Ottawa moves to reset its strained relationship with the White House ahead of a review of its trade deal with the US and Mexico.
Wiseman would start the role in February “as a core member of our negotiating team”, Carney said in a statement on Monday. He succeeds Kirsten Hillman, who announced earlier this month that she was stepping down after six years in the post.
“Wiseman brings immense experience, extensive contacts and deep commitment at this crucial time of transformation of our relationship with the US,” said Carney. Wiseman was appointed to the government’s council of Canada-US relations earlier this year.
He is expected to face steep challenges as the US has signalled it would like to rework the USMCA trade deal, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, which US President Trump renegotiated in 2018 during his first term.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer told a Senate finance committee for the USMCA review process last week that “virtually all stakeholders also called for some sort of improvement to the Agreement”.
Wiseman was ousted as a BlackRock senior executive in 2019 after failing to disclose a consensual romantic relationship with a colleague. He was previously chief executive of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
Toronto-based trade lawyer Barry Appleton stressed that in Trump’s Washington, it was essential to have a productive relationship with the US president.
“The president only deals with trusted allies . . . Wiseman is someone who is very close to Carney and that’s the type of person Trump wants to get the deal done,” he said.
But Canada’s Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre called Wiseman a “corporate crony” and “liberal-elite”, criticising his work as co-founder of the Century Initiative, which aims to triple Canada’s population to 100mn by 2100. Conservatives have linked Canada’s affordability crisis to increased immigration under the Liberal government.
“He will not negotiate a win for working Canadians,” Poilievre said in social media posts.
Wiseman, who has worked as an adviser to Boston Consulting Group and Hillhouse Capital, is another former Wall Street executive to join Carney’s inner circle as it faces mounting US hostilities.
Trump has spent more than a year criticising Canada and placed devastating tariffs on highly integrated cross-border industries, including softwood lumber, steel and aluminium, and the auto sector.
At the end of October, Trump abruptly terminated trade talks with Canada in response to an anti-tariff ad launched by Ontario premier Doug Ford that was broadcast in the US.
Carney later said he apologised to Trump for the campaign that used the voice of former Republican president Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about tariffs.
Canadian politicians have criss-crossed the globe in a bid to cut the country’s economic dependence on the US by efforts to double its trade with the rest of the world.
Source link
