We are polite but don’t push it, bully

Donald Trump’s decision to take his signature off the Charlevoix G7 summit communique is one of the most flagrant manufactured crises ever perpetrated by an American administration against an ally. In its blatant duplicity, it is right up there with the Bush administration’s invented weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Canadians watching Trump and his officials, post-summit, insultingly call Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ‘‘dishonest and weak’’ and accuse him of stabbing the president in the back can rest assured that none of that is true.

What did happen is that Trump set an antagonistic tone for the summit by announcing, just prior to it, steep tariffs on Canadian and European steel and aluminum. He again raised the stakes on the first day of the summit when he said Russia should be readmitted into the informal group (it was expelled in 2014 after its illegal annexation of Crimea).

What the vain and delicate Trump apparently expected Trudeau to say was that the summit was a success due entirely to the president’s generous participation, and that a grateful, moist-eyed Canada would no longer retaliate against his unjustified tariffs.

We are a polite people, but the president will learn that, when roused, we don’t roll over at the request of an insulting bully, no matter how big.