Oh, Canada: Ally gets trampled by Trump
prime minister push him around,” Kudlow told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “He is not going to permit any show of weakness on the trip to negotiate with North Korea . ... Kim must not see American weakness.”
Kudlow is a wonderful man, but this is barmy. Traditionally, the president is considered the leader of the free world. Well, being the leader of a coalition of powerful and rich countries is a stronger position than leader of America alone.
By throwing Canada under the bus — with language we rarely use about our actual adversaries — Trump and his subalterns were sending a message of American weakness, not strength.
When you go into a negotiation with a barbaric rogue state, you want to be able to convince your adversary that you can deliver your allies when it comes to the final deal. Giving Trudeau a rhetorical wedgie sends the exact opposite message.
It also creates problems far beyond whatever comes out of Singapore. Part of Kudlow’s complaint was that Trudeau’s “betrayal” was a “sophomoric political stunt for domestic consumption.”
Whether you think that’s true or not, there’s an important lesson here. One senior Trump adviser told The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg that the Trump Doctrine could be summarized as “We’re America, Bitch.” That may not be an official policy statement, but that is the impression our allies are getting.
The standard response from the Trump administration’s defenders is, “That’s what his base wants,” or, “That’s what he campaigned on.” True enough. But if running a foreign policy based on fan service to your base is good for the goose, it’s good for the gander as well.
When Pew asked about public confidence in Trump’s ability to handle world affairs, 22 percent of Canadians expressed confidence in the president (compared with 83 percent for Obama).
That’s not a problem if you think we don’t need allies, because they’re all going to hell anyway. But don’t be surprised if other world leaders decide it’s in their interest to behave antagonistically toward America now that Trump has decided it’s in his interest to do so to them.