In the midst of a global pandemic and an unprecedented border shutdown between the two countries, Canada formally named its ambassador to the United States. She is Kirsten Hillman, who has been doing the job in an acting capacity since last summer.

Justin Trudeau made the announcement official on Thursday morning.

Hillman is a veteran public servant and trade expert who earned the trust of Justin Trudeau’s government during the tense free-trade negotiations with Donald Trump’s White House. Until about a month ago, that seemed like the most difficult thing that a Canadian envoy to Washington would have to handle.

As the first woman to serve in this role, Hillman takes on the post when Canada and the United States are consumed with containing a virus that knows no borders, but one that has forced the closing of borders between the two of the most economically integrated nations on earth.

It would be hard to find an ambassador appointed to oversee Canada-U.S. relations at a more pivotal time.

Canada and the United States have been acting in lockstep so far on attempts to contain the virus. One of the last things that Parliament did before going into lockdown earlier this month was quick passage of the new North American Free Trade Agreement — NAFTA 2, as it’s called. By mutual agreement at the top levels, non-essential travel was banned between the two countries a week ago, and Canada has stopped taking refugee-seekers at the U.S. border.

But Trump and Trudeau do not seem to share views about where the COVID-19 crisis is headed in the next few weeks — especially about containment measures.

Trump has been saying that widespread physical-distancing should be over in the U.S. by the Easter holiday in mid-April. Trudeau is not voicing the same optimism, saying Canada could be in some kind of lockdown for “months.”

The U.S. president’s main preoccupations seems to be on what this virus is doing to the economy; Canada’s prime minister says repeatedly that public health has to be the priority.

One of Hillman’s main jobs in the days and weeks ahead will be to make sure that this discrepancy doesn’t hurt Canada’s efforts to wrestle down the virus, or do damage to the Canadian economy, which depends so much on trade and traffic with the United States.

An over-early relaxation of containment measures in the U.S. would almost inevitably spill over into virus spread or economic damage to Canada, if essential cross-border traffic has to be further curtailed.

Hillman’s appointment breaks a usual pattern of the ambassador’s job going to people with close political ties to the prime minister of the day. This isn’t an accident; Washington is a hyper-political town and expects that the ambassadors are politically connected to the countries they represent.

Hillman is replacing David MacNaughton, who went to Washington after Trudeau took power with exactly those credentials. MacNaughton, a long-time Liberal, worked closely with Trudeau’s team, especially chief of staff Katie Telford, long before the 2015 election. He stepped down last summer, before the last election, and Hillman has been acting in the job ever since.

At the same time, the United States has also been between ambassadors when it comes to Canada. Trump’s first appointee, Kelly Craft, left last summer to take up a new post, as her country’s ambassador to the United Nations.

In February, Trump formally nominated Craft’s replacement — Aldona Wos, a former physician who served as ambassador to Estonia in past Republican administrations. Her history as a powerful fundraiser for the Republicans fits with the habits of U.S. presidents, of both stripes, to reward big donors to the plum post in Canada.

Wos’s appointment still has to be confirmed by the Senate — a process that presumably awaits a return to more normal times in Washington.

Hillman’s background is rooted in trade law, serving in a variety of advisory roles in government — at the World Trade Organization, in the old Foreign Affairs department and as chief negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. She is respected by Conservatives and Liberals, having worked at high levels for both types of government.

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Her elevation from acting to permanent ambassador had been expected — even predicted in this paper a couple of months ago.

It’s one of the few developments that could have been predicted in global politics in this strange year. Nothing about Hillman’s job will be predictable in the days and weeks ahead.

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