{"id":166763,"date":"2018-06-11T02:54:08","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T06:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=166763"},"modified":"2018-06-11T02:54:08","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T06:54:08","slug":"white-house-takes-up-fight-against-back-stabbing-trudeau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/06\/11\/white-house-takes-up-fight-against-back-stabbing-trudeau\/","title":{"rendered":"White House takes up fight against ‘back stabbing’ Trudeau"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\u201cThere's<\/a>
\u201cThere’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door,\u201d Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro said in an interview nationally broadcast in the United States. (Photo By WHITE HOUSE, Public Domain)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

QUEBEC – Bashing the leader of one of America’s venerable allies, the White House escalated its trade tirade and leveled more withering and unprecedented criticism Sunday against Canada’s prime minister, branding Justin Trudeau a back-stabber unworthy of President Donald Trump’s time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door,\u201d Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro said in an interview nationally broadcast in the United States.<\/p>\n

Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, said her country \u201cdoes not conduct its diplomacy through ad hominem attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

The verbal volleys by Navarro and Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, picked up where Trump left off Saturday evening with a series of tweets from Air Force One en route to Singapore for his nuclear summit Tuesday with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Kudlow suggested Trump saw Trudeau as trying to weaken his hand before that meeting, saying the president won’t \u201clet a Canadian prime minister push him around. … Kim must not see American weakness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as the Trudeau-hosted Group of Seven meeting of the world’s leading industrialized nations had seemed to weather Trump’s threats of a trade war, the president backed out of the group’s joint statement that Trudeau said all the leaders had come together to sign. Trump called Trudeau \u201cdishonest & weak\u201d after Trudeau said at a news conference that Canada would retaliate for new U.S. tariffs.<\/p>\n

Trudeau didn’t respond to questions about Trump when the prime minister arrived at a Quebec City hotel Sunday for meetings with other world leaders, though Freeland later told reporters that \u201cwe don’t think that’s a useful or productive way to do business.\u201d<\/p>\n

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking Sunday to German public television, said she found Trump’s tweet disavowing the G-7 statement \u201csobering\u201d and \u201ca little depressing.\u201d Merkel, whose nation is a G-7 member, also said the European Union would \u201cact\u201d against the U.S. trade measures, which European leaders regard as going against the rules of the World Trade Organization.<\/p>\n

A Trudeau spokesman, Cameron Ahmad, said Saturday night that Trudeau \u201csaid nothing he hasn’t said before – both in public and in private conversations\u201d with Trump.<\/p>\n

And Roland Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Trudeau, jabbed on Trump on Twitter: \u201cBig tough guy once he’s back on his airplane. Can’t do it in person. … He’s a pathetic little man-child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trudeau said he had reiterated to Trump, who left the G-7 meeting before it ended, that tariffs would harm industries and workers on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. Trudeau told reporters that imposing retaliatory measures \u201cis not something I relish doing\u201d but that he wouldn’t hesitate to do so because \u201cI will always protect Canadian workers and Canadian interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navarro, the Trump trade adviser, said his harsh assessment of what \u201cbad faith\u201d Trudeau did with \u201cthat stunt press conference\u201d on Saturday \u201ccomes right from Air Force One.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Trump \u201cdid the courtesy to Justin Trudeau to travel up to Quebec for that summit. He had other things, bigger things, on his plate in Singapore. … He did him a favour and he was even willing to sign that socialist communique. And what did Trudeau do as soon as the plane took off from Canadian airspace? Trudeau stuck our president in the back. That will not stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kudlow, in a separate TV appearance, said Trudeau was \u201cpolarizing\u201d and \u201creally kind of stabbed us in the back.\u201d The Canadian leader pulled a \u201csophomoric political stunt for domestic consumption,\u201d Kudlow said, that amounted to \u201ca betrayal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon’t blame Trump. It was Trudeau who started blasting Trump after he left, after the deals had been made.\u201d Kudlow said Trump won’t let people \u201ctake pot shots at him\u201d and that Trudeau \u201cshould’ve known better.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the criticism left a former Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, stumped. \u201cI don’t understand the obsession with trade relations with Canada,\u201d he said, given that Canada is the biggest single buyer of American goods and services in the world. From promoting democracy and to fighting terrorism, \u201cwe’re on the same page. We’re the closest partners in the world and you don’t want to see a dispute over one particular issue poison everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trudeau had said Canadians \u201care polite, we’re reasonable, but also we will not be pushed around.\u201d He described all seven leaders coming together to sign the joint declaration despite having \u201csome strong, firm conversations on trade, and specifically on American tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the air by then, Trump tweeted: \u201cBased on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!\u201d<\/p>\n

He followed up by tweeting: \u201cPM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our ?G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, \u201cUS Tariffs were kind of insulting\u201d and he \u201cwill not be pushed around.\u201d Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!\u201d<\/p>\n

Before leaving for Singapore, Trump had delivered a stark warning to America’s trading partners not to counter his decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The G-7 also includes Britain, Italy, France, Germany and Japan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they retaliate, they’re making a mistake,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Trump insisted relationships with allies were a \u201c10\u201d just before he left the summit.<\/p>\n

At a rare solo news conference before heading to Asia, Trump said he pressed for the G-7 countries to eliminate all tariffs, trade barriers and subsidies in their trading practices. He reiterated his longstanding view that the U.S. has been taken advantage of in global trade, adding, \u201cWe’re like the piggy bank that everybody’s robbing, and that ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navarro appeared on \u201cFox News Sunday,\u201d and Kudlow was on CNN’s \u201cState of the Union\u201d and CBS’ \u201cFace the Nation\u201d and Harper spoke on Fox’s \u201cSunday Morning Futures.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

QUEBEC – Bashing the leader of one of America’s venerable allies, the White House escalated its trade tirade and leveled …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":166764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24157,16,17],"tags":[12212,51832,14087],"class_list":["post-166763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-american-news","category-news","category-news-w","tag-chrystia-freeland","tag-peter-navarro","tag-president-donald-trump","mauthors-rob-gillies","mauthors-ken-thomas-and-catherine-lucey","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}