G20 SHAPING UP TO BE SHOWDOWN
Trudeau looks to perform delicate balancing act between Trump, Merkel
• Justin Trudeau is embarking on a week- long European sojourn that will culminate in a meeting of 20 of the world’s largest economies — one where he’ll test-drive a foreign affairs policy aimed at charting Canada’s own course in the world.
But Friday’s G20 meetings are clearly shaping up as a showdown between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U. S. President Donald Trump.
In a speech last week to the German parliament that laid out her priorities for the meeting, Merkel — host of the two- day gathering in Hamburg — delivered a pointed critique of Trump’s now- infamous “America First” doctrine without ever once mentioning his name.
“Whoever believes that the world’s problems can be solved by isolationism and protectionism is mistaken,” Merkel said.
Her G20 agenda — stronger global co-operation to fight climate change and terrorism, and more robust international trade — cuts directly to the heart of her well-documented differences with Trump, a strategy some see as an effort to further isolate the U.S. president on the world stage.
Trump, for his part, has escalated the war of words with Merkel, using familiar rhetoric about a “massive trade deficit” the U. S. has with Germany and threats to slap import taxes on German- made cars.
Trump stood alone at the G7 meeting in Italy last month when the other six leaders, including Merkel and Trudeau, pushed him to stick with the Paris climate change accord, an international treaty aimed at keeping global warming to less than two degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Trump demurred, refused to sign the Paris part of the G7 communiqué, and later made it official: the U. S. was out.
Since then, Merkel has been working hard to shore up support for the accord among other G20 nations. She met recently with leaders from China and India, travelled to Mexico and Argentina last month and sat down with European leaders just last week to develop a united front.
Into this mix steps Trudeau — more philosophically aligned with Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, France’s new president, but lashed to the U. S. through economic and geographic ties.
Trudeau’s approach to Trump has put him in a unique position at this gathering, said Colin Robertson, a former Canadian diplomat.
“The rest of the world has been impressed with how Justin Trudeau has managed Trump,” Robertson said.
Trudeau pushed Trump on Paris at the G7, but was less critical and showed more patience than his European counterparts. He has since expressed his disappointment and sided with the other signatories, all the while insisting he’s not going to tell the president how to run his country.
At the same time, however, Canada has served notice that in an era of American protectionism, it will forge its own path. It will push to strengthen the “postwar multilateral order” that includes such institutions as the United Nations, NATO and the World Trade Organization, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland made clear last month.
David Perry at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute said he’ll be watching to see how Canada turns that speech into action. “It will be curious to see if that has just been rhetoric, or if there has actually been some substance behind it,” he said.
While Merkel may want to isolate the current U. S. administration, America remains too influential for anyone to try to work without it entirely, he added. “America matters no matter what anybody thinks,” Perry said.
Before landing in Germany, Trudeau stops in Dublin to meet with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. From there, he will travel to Scotland for an audience with the Queen.