Chrystia Freeland can square off with the heavyweights. Just ask Donald Trump. “We don’t like their representative very much,” the U.S. president said of Freeland during the heat of negotiations that led to the United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement. But Canadians liked Freeland’s style — a lot. 

Her calm, fact-based approach to negotiations on a revised trade agreement kept talks on the rails at a time when Trump seemed determined to kill the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. And her hard-driving style as leader of Team Canada was the perfect foil for the president’s bluster. 

The 50-year-old accomplished journalist, author and politician was born in Peace River, Alta., was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, worked at several prominent newspapers and wrote a New York Times best seller before entering federal politics in 2013.