NATO to reinforce Russian threat to Trump

OTTAWA — President Donald Trump’s NATO allies will have little time for his pro-Russian musings when he meets the alliance’s leaders at their annual summit in Brussels starting Wednesday, says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau delivered that message during a daylong visit to Latvia ahead of the 29-country military summit, and just hours after Trump moved to disrupt the meeting by casting Russia in a positive light.

Prior to his departure for Brussels, Trump raised eyebrows when he said that of all the items on his travel itinerary, Russian President Vladimir Putin likely poses less of a problem for him than his miserly NATO allies or the European Union’s pending Brexit breakup with Britain.

Trump also heaped praise on former British foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who led Britain’s “leave” campaign during its 2016 Brexit referendum, and whose resignation this week has triggered a political crisis for Britain’s Conservative government.

Britain’s summer 2016 referendum saw the leave side prevail by a 52-48 margin — a populist victory combined with Trump’s surprise victory in the U.S. presidential race later in the year that sparked upheaval in the global order. Trudeau was side-swiped last month by Trump’s antiestablishment behaviour when the president trashed him on Twitter hours after the G7 summit in Quebec, calling him “very dishonest and weak.” Trudeau made it clear that he will join his fellow NATO allies in the defending an alliance originally built to counter the former Soviet Union, following the Second World War.

“The meeting tomorrow will be an opportunity for all of our countries to rededicate ourselves to NATO, to demonstrate that it’s actually important, that it actually does important things, and that the collection of values and rules that it was brought in to defend 75-plus years ago are just as relevant today as they ever were,” Trudeau said.

“I look forward to having words with President Trump.”