Canada’s ambassador to Washington is preparing to leave office, and Prime Minister Mark Carney is considering a former BlackRock Inc. senior executive for the job ahead of crucial trade talks with the U.S. and Mexico.

Kirsten Hillman, who serves as ambassador and Canada’s chief trade negotiator with the U.S., has informed Carney she will leave both roles 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,” she said in a statement.

Mark Wiseman, a former BlackRock executive who once ran the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, is the leading contender to become ambassador, though the appointment is not yet finalized, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition they not be identified. It’s not clear who, if anyone, would be named to succeed Hillman as head negotiator.

The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is set for a formal review in 2026, and for Canada, the economic stakes could hardly be higher. If the pact isn’t renewed, it triggers rolling one-year reviews that could eventually see the agreement terminated — casting a pall of uncertainty around the investment climate.

Hillman, a career diplomat and lawyer who worked closely on past trade negotiations, first took over as acting ambassador in 2019. Near the beginning of the COVID pandemic, during the final year of the first Trump administration, she was named to the role permanently by then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“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,” Hillman said. CUSMA is the term the Canadian government uses for USMCA.

Wiseman was not immediately available for comment.

Since winning an election in April, Carney and his cabinet have made a number of attempts to reach an agreement with U.S. President Donald Trump on tariffs. The prime minister’s initial goal was to negotiate a broad deal on trade and security, but when that effort failed, he focused on a narrower agreement to lower U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum. Canada is a major exporter of those products to the U.S.

The two sides were close to a metals deal in October, the U.S. ambassador to Canada has said — but then Trump abruptly halted the talks, irked by an Ontario government television ad that used the words of the late Ronald Reagan to criticize tariffs. The negotiations have remained on ice since then.

It appears likely that trade irritants and tariffs will all become part of the scheduled 2026 review of USMCA, the pact Trump negotiated in his first term. All three countries have begun consultations, hearing from industry stakeholders and trade experts on whether the agreement should be renewed, modified or spiked.

But there’s no firm timeline for the upcoming talks, which could theoretically drag on for years and then face hurdles such as passage through U.S. Congress if the existing pact is amended.

Carney lauded Hillman’s service in a statement posted on social media. “As one of the longest-serving Ambassadors to the United States in our history, her wide-ranging and constructive engagement with all branches of the U.S. Government as well as with leaders across America and Canada have yielded crucial results for Canadians,” the prime minister said.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer praised Hillman and said he didn’t expect her departure to impact the USMCA review.

“Ambassador Hillman is a class act. We worked closely with her, not only in recent years but even during the original USMCA,” he said.

Wiseman ran Canada’s national pension fund manager from 2012 to 2016, expanding its global footprint and increasing the firm’s staffing in private market investments.

He then went to BlackRock as global head of active equities. But his time at the global asset manager came to an abrupt end in December 2019 when he was fired over a consensual relationship that violated the company’s policies.

Wiseman has been an influential figure in Canadian economic policy, participating in national debates on immigration, long-term investment and Canada’s economic relationship with the U.S. He currently serves as a senior adviser and chairman of Lazard Canada and board member at Nova Chemicals, among other roles.

He has criticized Canada’s system of supply management in the dairy sector as an impediment to productivity. During the election, Carney promised to protect that system, but Trump has made it clear he wants the Canadian market to become more open to imports from U.S. farmers.

_____

With assistance from Alicia Diaz.

_____

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.