Trudeau’s Envoy to U.S. Steps Down After Helping Overhaul Nafta

(Bloomberg) -- Justin Trudeau’s ambassador to Washington is leaving his post at the end of summer for a job in the private sector.

The prime minister hailed David MacNaughton as a Canadian patriot who helped renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with the Trump administration.

“David’s skill in bridging partisan and ideological divides -- always putting Canadians’ interests first, never deviating from objectives he knew to be both possible and desirable -- has been unparalleled,” Trudeau said Thursday in a statement.

MacNaughton, who previously led Ottawa-based consulting firm Strategy Corp. and was a former chairman of Hill+Knowlton Strategies in New York, worked alongside Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland during more than a year of tense negotiations to overhaul Nafta. The new deal is awaiting ratification in the U.S. and Canada, but has been passed by Mexico’s senate.

“The Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement preserves, updates, and modernizes our most important trading relationship, just as we set out to do,” Trudeau said.

The prime minister said Kirsten Hillman will serve as Canada’s acting ambassador to the U.S.

To contact the reporter on this story: Stephen Wicary in Ottawa at swicary@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Theophilos Argitis at targitis@bloomberg.net, Chris Fournier

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