The world loves Trudeau, but does Trudeau love the world?

If he never makes stronger moves, the adulation may end, Shannon Gormley says.

The world loves Justin Trudeau, and why shouldn’t it?

He’s handsome. He’s kind. He loves children, whimsical clothing and constitutional rights. And then there’s his touch.

So goes the erotic letter to Penthouse that, through an unfortunate clerical error, ended up mislabelled as a political profile in Rolling Stone magazine recently, anyway. It was a strange read. Strange, but not entirely wrong.

Assuming the author had a contribution to make apart from creating a new sub-genre of government-centric erotica, his argument was largely correct: The world has gotten stuck with a boor; it’s ready to be seduced by a gentleman.

But though Canadians are regularly annoyed by fawning coverage of Trudeau, other countries may eventually have more serious complaints if the admiration turns out to be one-sided.

The world loves Justin Trudeau, but he hasn’t yet made it quite clear that he loves the world. He claims to care about NATO — he just hasn’t spent much more than half of Canada’s pledge. He claims to have concern for developing countries — he just hasn’t raised Canada above its near all-time low for international aid. He claims to respect human rights — he just hasn’t prevented Canada from selling human-rights abusers billions of dollars worth of weapons. And he claims to embrace compassionate politics, but his strongest public stand against the racist despot next door has been to shake his hand very hard.

What, then, are Trudeau’s intentions with the world? I don’t mean for this question to be rhetorical. It’s still open. These are relatively early days. It’s too soon to decide that Trudeau is using the international community for the applause.

There’s little honour in impulsivity, and we shouldn’t ask someone to exercise it. Maybe Trudeau is playing the long game in his love affair with the world. Maybe he has the intellectual depth to understand what’s at stake, the foresight to cultivate the right opportunities and the wisdom to wait for them to develop before he acts decisively. Maybe he needs more information.

Or maybe not. There’s always the chance he’s flirting with a relationship with rare promise at a critical moment, only to let it go to waste. Such a man isn’t being patient and strategic; he’s behaving fecklessly. He may have won some attention, but he doesn’t have the insight and the resolve to put in the work that could make him a man who builds something really meaningful in the world.

It’s an indictment of him alone if he has no follow-through. None of us can possibly flatter ourselves so much as to believe that the inherent value of the western liberal order is diminished by one particular Canadian’s failure to appreciate it.

Canada can’t do better than NATO; NATO is vital to security, whether or not Trudeau funds defence sufficiently. Canada isn’t too good for international aid contributions; international aid contributions are vital to soft power, whether or not Trudeau makes enough of them. And Canada isn’t in a different league from those states expected to respect international law; international law is indispensable to universal justice, whether or not Trudeau’s finalization of possibly illegal weapons deals respects the spirit of the system.

International peace, security, prosperity, liberty — any western leader can hurt any of these principles through neglect, but they’ll eventually recover their standing with the world. He, however, may not recover his.

For now, Trudeau seems comfortable basking in global adoration, and why shouldn’t he? His better qualities have been rhapsodized about in international publications, his visage emblazoned on unicorn-festooned sweatshirts, his socks immortalized in the memories of whoever cares about socks. If the world’s hottest date never manages to make some stronger moves, though, the world will move on without him. French President Emmanuel Macron, come to think of it, hasn’t been looking so bad lately …

Sooner or later — though perhaps not just yet — you have to ask whether a man is capable of offering what he shows off. The world loves Justin Trudeau. But why should it?

Shannon Gormley is an Ottawa Citizen global affairs columnist and freelance journalist.