PM lets hair down on eve of G20 meet
Police, protesters clash in Hamburg
HAMBURG — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s sunny ways will be tested over the next few days amid tensions both inside and outside the gates of the G20 summit in Germany, where tens of thousands of protesters are already wreaking havoc.
After protesters in Hamburg torched a Porsche dealership overnight, things appeared relatively calm through the day Thursday until a barrage of firecrackers and bottles aimed at riot police was answered with tear gas and water cannons.
Not far away, the mood was less violent as more than 12,000 activists attending the Global Citizen Festival greeted Trudeau with raucous cheers during a rock concert at an arena in the northwest part of the city.
Trudeau, along with his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, introduced the band Coldplay and spoke of Canada’s feminist international development policy, which he said puts women and girls at the heart of Canada’s aid efforts.
“That’s one of the messages I’ll be bringing with me to the G20 Leaders’ Summit this weekend, and I hope you’ll help to share that message too,” he said.
He later returned to discuss the need to eradicate global diseases like polio.
Trudeau arrived in the northern port city just hours before U.S. President Donald Trump, whose protectionist rhetoric and stance against climate-change action are widely seen as a threat to much of the G20’s recent progress.
But in the minutes after Trudeau touched down, all the focus was on his three-year-old son, Hadrien.
After descending from the plane while swinging from his parents’ arms, Hadrien walked proudly down the red carpet clutching the bouquet of flowers that German officials initially presented to his mother.
It was a fun diversion to kick off Trudeau’s visit to Germany.
At the concert, where mere mentions of Trump or Russian President Vladimir Putin sent the crowd into fits of booing, the Canadian prime minister was given rock star status among the concert goers.
That’s one of the other main events from this summit: Trump’s first in-person meeting with his controversial Russian counterpart.
The G20 gets fully underway today, but leaders were already meeting each other Thursday evening.
Trump sat down with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with whom he shares a fractious relationship.
Merkel has made no secret of her plan to isolate Trump and his anti-climate change stance during the meetings, and Trump has criticized Germany intensely over everything from its defence spending to its refugee policy.
During the concert, Trudeau had meetings in a private suite in the arena with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, Argentine President Mauricio Macri and the head of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim.