Trump delivers warning on trade as he leaves G-7 summit
Exiting a world summit with characteristic bravado, President Donald Trump delivered a stark warning Saturday to America’s trading partners not to counter his decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Despite his sharp differences with U.S. allies, the president insisted he has a “great relationship” with his foreign counterparts.
“If they retaliate, they’re making a mistake,” Trump declared before departing the annual Group of Seven summit in Canada for his meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Singapore on Tuesday.
Trump’s abbreviated stay at this Quebec resort saw him continuing the same type of tough talk on trade as when he departed the White House, accusing the summit’s host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, of being “indignant.”
The summit came during an ongoing trade dispute with China and served as a precursor to his unprecedented meeting with Kim, in which he has sought to extend a hand to the Asian autocrat who has long bedeviled the international order.
“His message from Quebec to Singapore is that he is going to meld the industrial democracies to his will — and bring back Russia,” said Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign and White House adviser. Bannon said China is “now on notice that Trump will not back down from even allies’ complaints in his goal of ‘America First.’ ” I think it’s going to work out very well,” he said.
The meeting will be the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader. Unlike traditional summits between heads of state, where most of the work is completed in advance of a photo-op, U.S. officials say the only thing certain ahead of these talks will be their unpredictability. Bourdain said in 2014. “But in two decades as a chef and employer, I never had one American kid walk in my door and apply for a dishwashing job, a porter’s position or even a job as prep cook.”
During the 2016 presidential campaign season, Bourdain slammed Trump’s promises to deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally and build a wall along the Mexican border. tried to unlawfully enter the United States. Court records show he went to the U.S. seeking asylum.
The Eritrean embassies in the U.S. and Egypt haven’t responded to requests for comment.