Trump shocks G7 with Trudeau insult as he torpedoes summit
ALIENATING ALLIES White House takes up fight with ‘backstabbing’ Canada PM
Trudeau acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, “US Tariffs were kind of insulting” and he “will not be pushed around.” Very dishonest & weak.
QUEBEC CITY: President Donald Trump broadsided his allies and upended a Group of Seven meeting just as it wound up — disavowing a joint statement the US had agreed to, lashing out at Canada’s Justin Trudeau and ratcheting up trade tensions.
Trump fired off a pair of tweets several hours after leaving the summit in Canada to fly to Singapore for another on North Korea. Trudeau and other leaders had given closing press conferences and announced a Us-backed joint G-7 statement. Minutes after that statement was published online, Trump complained about comments made by Trudeau and revoked his support.
“I have instructed our US Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the US Market!,” Trump tweeted on Saturday evening, saying he was responding to Trudeau. “Very dishonest & weak,” he said of the Canadian prime minister.
His comments undermine the G-7, once a pillar of US foreign policy and has long acted as a defender of the global economic system.
Trump’s remarks came shortly after Trudeau projected an image of cooperation. At his closing press conference, he announced all G-7 nations had worked hard to finalise a joint statement, which largely committed them to keep talking on trade.
“Those who doubted our capacity to work together will have seen our ability to deliver,” he said.
Trudeau also repeated statements he’d made earlier — calling US steel and aluminium tariffs “insulting” and pledging to proceed with previously announced retaliatory tariffs. Trump said that retaliation is a “mistake,” according to Trudeau. Canada is “polite, we’re reasonable but we also will not be pushed around,” Trudeau added. Trump’s tweets cited those comments.
Trudeau’s office responded to the tweets with a written statement, saying his comments in public and in private with Trump were “nothing he hasn’t said before” and that he was “focused on everything we accomplished here at the G-7 summit.”
A senior UK official said Theresa May’s government stands by commitments made in the communique, and a similar statement was issued by the German government.
U.S. ESCALATES TRADE TIRADE
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, on CNN’S State of the Union on Sunday, called on Trudeau to apologise, saying that he “really kind of stabbed us in the back”.
The US helped negotiate the joint communique and was “very close to making a deal with Canada” on NAFTA, Kudlow said. But Trudeau’s post-conference criticism on Saturday was “a betrayal” that required a response from Trump, to avoid showing weakness on the eve of talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, he added.
In a separate TV appearance, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro said that there is “a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy” with Trump.
Trudeau didn’t respond to questions about Trump when he arrived at a Quebec City hotel on Sunday for meetings with other world leaders.