Man-baby Trump made a mess of the G-7 summit in Charlevoix; Trudeau, Merkel, and Macron simply called him out on it.
[Originally published on Twitter June 10, 2018]
(THREAD — 21 tweets) So this went well. Here’s what really happened at the G-7 summit in Charlevoix, Quebec. #g-7
1/ Trump magnanimously agrees to attend the G-7 summit — although he hates and despises the “rule-based international order” on which is based and all his instincts tell him to destroy it.
2/ Trump behaves like a man-baby at the conference, and alienates all the other G-7 members, without exception.
3/ At his presser on leaving the conference, Trump gaslights in the most shamefaced manner imaginable, claiming that on a scale of 0 to 10, his relationship with the other members at the summit had hit a 10.
4/ Trump also maligned all previous US presidents (going back at least through the entire post-World War II period) and was insufferably aggressive and offensive in his remarks about the negotiations that had taken place at Charlevoix.
5/ At the summit, Trump had also issued a throw away line about getting rid of all tariffs, all subsidies etc., and he repeated this proposal at his press conference.
5/ No one at the summit knew what to make of this, and in any case it would take years to negotiate, and would also require a POTUS who is not a man-baby for it to have any chance of success.
6/ What WAS clearly left on the table was Trump’s pledge (at least until the brave new world of zero tariffs materializes) that the US would unilaterally raise tariffs against all other G-7 members, including Canada.
7/ After Trump leaves, Trudeau gives a dignified and low-keyed presser which does not in any way refer to Trump personally, but says that Canada will respond with retaliatory tariffs against the US b/c Canada will not be pushed around.
8/ When he hears about this on Air Force One, Trump goes ballistic and insults Trudeau on Twitter.
9/ That Trump misrepresented how things went down with the other members is crystal clear from the statements issued today by Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, who backed Trudeau against Trump.
10/ Trump’s economic advisers at the summit then weighed in. The reaction of Kudlow
11/ and Navarro are interesting.
12/ Kudlow accused Trudeau of backstabbing Trump, and further of trying to sabotage Trump’s negotiations with Kim Jong-Un in Singapore.
13/ Kudlow is exercised because Trudeau was not sufficiently appreciative that Trump had (initially) agreed to sign a joint statement at all.
14/ (He must have worked very hard to get Trump to sign it, although it amounted to nothing more than a restatement of a decades-old understanding with the US’s closest allies.)
15/ Kudlow’s reaction is only understandable on the assumption that he expected Trudeau to completely ignore what DID definitely go down at Toronto (i.e., unilaterally tearing up the G-7 trade deals and raising tariffs)
16/ and pay attention ONLY to Trump’s throw away line about free trade. (Kudlow is a free trader.) No reason in the world why Trudeau should have done that.
17/ Navarro is an ardent protectionist (anti-free trader) and also went ballistic, but for entirely different reasons, saying that Trudeau deserved a “special place in hell,”
18/ and made it clear that he was fiercely opposed to Trump’s signing that “socialist” joint statement at all — you know, the one that restated the economic trade principals that has made the US and its allies strong for decades.
19/ Observing all this, Fox News hosts praise Trump’s squalid and disastrous performance at the summit, claiming that it shows that Trump is “tough” and can’t be pushed around.
20/ The Trump administration arguably hit a new low at Charlevoix (which is saying something).
On to Singapore, for which (according to Kudlow), the G-7 conference was only a minor prelude and annoying diversion.
God help us.
Correction: Quebec.
Correction: “principles”
