WASHINGTON – President Trump withdrew from a joint statement with G7 allies on trade because he needed to show toughness before his historic negotiations with…
WASHINGTON – President Trump withdrew from a joint statement with G7 allies on trade because he needed to show toughness before his historic negotiations with Kim Jong Un, according to his chief economic advis e r.
“POTUS is not going to let a Canadian prime minister push him around… on the eve of this,” Larry Kudlow told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “He’s not going to permit any show of weakness on the trip to negotiations with North Korea.”
Trump was ticked off by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau taking amateur “pot shots” at him during a press conference after Trump left the G-7 summit en route to Singapore, Kudlow said.
Kudlow had been negotiating nicely with Trudeau at the summit in Quebec and the US had agreed to join the joint communique, but Trump pulled out after he felt betrayed by Trudeau’s news conference where the prime minister called Trump’s tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel exports “insulting.”
Trudeau pledged retaliatory tariffs against the US starting July 1 because Canadians will “not be pushed around.”
Trudeau “kind of stabbed us in the back,” Kudlow said. “You just don’t behave that way. It’s a betrayal. He’s double-crossing.”
White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro had even harsher words for Trudeau.
“There’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. And that’s what bad-faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference,” said Navarro told “Fox News Sunday.”
Trump was doing Trudeau a favor by coming to Quebec for the G7 when he “had bigger things on his plate” with the North Korean summit.
“All Justin Trudeau had to do was take the win,” Navarro said. “He did him a favor 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 and that will not stand.”
Kudlow accused Trudeau of “pouring collateral damage” on the high-stakes talks with North Korea.
“He ought to come out and apologize in the name of the western allies,” Kudlow said of Trudeau. “He ought to come out today and wish President Trump well in the negotiations instead of taking pot shots at him.”
Trump left the G7 summit early to get a head start to Singapore where he’ll hold a historic summit the North Korean leader on Monday.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said it was wrong for Trump to pull out of the joint G7 communique that would have showed solidarity with America’s best allies.
“I understand the president was upset,” Feinstein told CNN. “The president could have said that. But to walk away from our allies in this way I think is a mistake.”
