Skip to content

Blog No. 182. Trump, Trudeau and Kim: The World Turned Upside Down

It is said that at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, the British military band played an old English ballad, “The World Turned Upside Down.” While the story may have been apocryphal, the playing of that tune would have been appropriate. It would also be a fitting substitute for “Hail to the Chief” in the Trump White House. In one and a half years of the Trump administration, the President has not only aimed a wrecking ball at every domestic program associated with his predecessor, but has conducted a bizarre foreign policy that has discarded long held values and fractured alliances maintained by every administration, Republican or Democratic, since World War II. He has manifested hostility toward leaders of Western democracies and affection for dictators everywhere. Moreover, his mantra, “America First” has become not merely a crude and chauvinistic slogan, but an excuse for displays of personal petulance.

Trump and Trudeau

While en route to the Singapore Summit, Trump levied a savage attack on Canada’s Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of one of our oldest, closest and most important allies. The attack on Trudeau came after a conference of the G-7 at which America’s, that is to say Trump’s, isolation had been evident throughout. Not content with differences on climate and other issues, Trump startled the participants with an abrupt proposal that Russia be re-admitted to the group, making it again the G-8. What about Russia’s grab of Crimea? Let’s let bygones be bygones and besides, it was all Obama’s fault.

The mood of the conference was captured in a photograph of Trump being stared down by Germany’s Angela Merkel.

Commenting on the photo, the former Prime Minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt, tweeted “Just tell us what Vladimir has on you. Maybe we can help.”

At the end, the other participants attempted to paper over their differences with Trump by a joint communique, producing a bland statement largely expressing intentions to work together on various issues. The communique made only a glancing reference to tariffs and conspicuously expressed the isolated position of the United States on the Paris Accord and climate change. In any case, even that modest effort to preserve an appearance of unity was short-lived. On his flight to Singapore, Trump took to his Twitter account to indulge in characteristic fit of pique, ranting against Prime Minister Trudeau and reneging on his endorsement of the G-7 communique.

Trump’s tantrum was triggered by Trudeau’s comments at a press conference at which he had responded to a reporter’s question in a way that infuriated Trump:

Reporter: “Prime Minister, a follow-up, though, on the two sort of specific threats from the president today, saying that he would cut off trade with countries that don’t do what the Americans want them to do, and that if you retaliate on steel tariffs, as you plan to do on July 1, that you’re making a mistake. So, how seriously do you take that threat and does that change your plans to go ahead with the retaliatory tariffs?”

Trudeau: “I highlighted directly to the president that Canadians did not take it lightly that the United States has moved forward with significant tariffs on our steel and aluminum industry, particularly did not take lightly the fact that it’s based on a national security reason that for Canadians, who either themselves or whose parents or community members have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with American soldiers in far off lands and conflicts from the First World War onwards, that it’s kind of insulting. And highlighted that it was not helping in our renegotiation of NAFTA and that it would be with regret, but it would be with absolute certainty and firmness that we move forward with retaliatory measures on July 1, applying equivalent tariffs to the ones that the Americans have unjustly applied to us. I have made it very clear to the president that it is not something we relish doing, but  that we absolutely will do, because Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we will not be pushed around.”

From  Air Force One, Trump responded with a tweet  that charged Trudeau with “false statements” and accused him of being “dishonest” and “weak.” His acolytes, ever eager to please the boss, went further over the top on the Sunday talk shows. His Chief Economic Adviser, Larry Kudlow, charged Trudeau with the “betrayal” of Trump and other G-7 leaders.

“He really kind of stabbed us in the back. It’s a betrayal. It’s essentially double-crossing. Not just double-crossing President Trump, but other members of the G-7.” Trump’s senior trade adviser, Peter Navarro, upped the ante in language for which he would later apologize: “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.”

Neither Trump, Kudlow, Navarro nor anyone at the White House explained the supposedly “false statements” by Trudeau to which Trump referred. In fact, there were none. The principal false statement at the root of the matter was Trump’s: his claim that he was imposing aluminum and steel tariffs on Canada as a matter of “national security” (as permitted under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act). Questioned about that purported justification at his own press conference after the G-7 meeting, Trump had lamely answered that trade deficits affect our “balance sheet” and the balance sheet is a concern of national security. But in the course of his airborne Twittervent, Trump abandoned that fig leaf and admitted that the Canadian tariffs were imposed for a very particular reason plainly unrelated to national security: “Our Tariffs are in response to Trudeau’s of 270% on dairy!”

Trump’s attempt to abuse of Section 232 authority was even acknowledged by some Republican lawmakers, including Pennsylvania’s Senator Pat Toomey: “Invoking 232 as the justification for putting these tariffs in place is a mistake,” he told reporters, “It’s very clear. This isn’t about national security.”  Toomey has introduced bipartisan legislation to curb the president’s power under Section 2, but how much support it will gain remains to be seen. At the same time, a challenge could come from another quarter. The Koch brothers are said to be deploying significant resources in opposition to Trump’s trade polices. (See, e.g., the New York Times, June 4, 2018, “Conservative Koch Groups Plan Pro-Trade Blitz, as the Issue Splits Republicans.”) One project that they might consider would be to provide financial support for a legal challenge to the 232 tariff brought by an American purchaser of Canadian steel.

Returning to the Trump-Trudeau spat, it may be that Trudeau could have stated his case a bit more diplomatically. Nevertheless, the level of irritation displayed by Trump and his in-house sycophants was vastly out of proportion. Moreover, even if their outrage had been justified, it would have been no excuse whatever for refusing to sign the G-7 communique that Trump had just agreed to. Uglier still was Trump’s assertion that Canadians would have to pay for his hurt feelings: “That’s going to cost a lot of money for the people of Canada.”

On the eve of the Singapore Summit, Larry Kudlow  offered the rationale that Trump’s intemperate response to Trudeau had been necessary to show to Kim that Trump was not weak. It is questionable how much, if any attention Kim was paying to the goings-on at the G-7. But if he was paying attention, an impression of Trump’s weakness—and unreliability as a negotiating partner—would have come from Trump’s inability to work with his allies and his failure to honor an agreement on which the ink was hardly dry. If Kim did gain such an impression, he would not need it to get everything he wanted from the Singapore Summit. 

Trump and Kim

If grades on the Singapore Summit were being given, it would have to receive an A or A+ from the North Korean perspective and a C- from America’s.

As matter of optics, Kim enjoyed not merely the prestige of meeting with the American president, but the peculiar experience of being the object of his lavish flattery. The Atlantic tartly observed that Trump sounded like a smitten contestant on The Bachelorette and offered a small sample:

It was an “honor” to meet Kim, Trump said. What surprised the American most about his counterpart? “Great personality and very smart—good combination,” he said. “I learned that he’s a very talented man. I also learned that he loves his country very much.” He added that Kim was “a worthy negotiator … a very worthy, very smart negotiator.” The president continued to gush during a press conference and in interviews.

While Trump has been criticized in many quarters for not having raised human rights with Kim in any meaningful way, that would admittedly have been awkward to do with a man who has a record of imprisonment, torture, and murder with few if any equals in this century. Still, recalling record might at least have provided some restraint on Trump’s slobbering commentary.

Appearances aside, Kim received a huge windfall with Trump’s declaration  that the United States would suspend indefinitely its joint military exercises with South Korea. Trump  made this determination not only without receiving any reciprocal concession, but in the absence of prior consultation with South Korea (or, it appears, even our own Defense Department). Finally, adding insult to injury, Trump even adopted the rhetoric of North Korea, calling the exercises “war games” and labeling them“provocative.”  The joint military exercises have been carried on since the 1970s and, in recent months, have been staunchly defended by our Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Continuation of the exercises may not be as “untouchable” as indicated in the past, but apart from their military function, they have symbolic value important to  not only  South Korea but to Japan and the entire region. It is hard to think of any reason why they should have been casually jettisoned on the spur of a “feel-good moment.”

From the standpoint of the United States, the summit deserves a grade as high as a C- only because it represents a significant step away from the bellicose posturing of  only a few months ago. It  has been said by some of Trump’s supporters that his flattery of Kim was a negotiating technique. Well, perhaps, but did it have to be ladled out in gooey spoonfuls? And what did it produce? Actually, not much. It has been widely and incontestably pointed out that the Joint Statement signed by the two leaders, was merely an assortment of vague generalities in which Kim promised nothing he had not previously promised (and failed to deliver).

Trump insisted, against all evidence, that the agreement with Kim was “comprehensive,” and  proclaimed expansively that “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” It was a proclamation that may for some  recall Neville Chamberlain’s proud announcement after meeting with Hitler that he had achieved “peace for out time.” In any case, the greatest danger continues to be that it will become apparent  at some point  that Kim is not living up to Trump’s grand expectations or those  he has created in the public’s mind.  At that point, feeling “betrayed,” a furious Trump would again bring to the fore the prospect of military action–and the dreadful consequences of such action.

In the meantime, America’s beleaguered allies  will continue to wonder where our unpredictable leader will head and at what cost. A distinguished journalist, Jim Hoagland, writing from Paris in the Washington Post, suggested  a worrisome possibility:

In recent conversations here, European officials cast a more sinister light on what they think Trump has in mind in picking very public fights with America’s closest allies and the institutions they and the United States have created to instill some order and fairness in the international system. These officials fear that Trump is laying the groundwork for a U.S. decision to withdraw from the World Trade Organization, the 164-nation body that adopts and enforces global rules of trade and provides dispute settlement mechanisms when conflicts between nations arise.

Trump may be dreaming that undoing the world’s rules of trade would let America’s overwhelming economic power reorder global trade balances in this country’s favor. The president may welcome such a very Trumpian, dog-eat-dog world. But even if that is not Trump’s intent in whipping up popular anger against globalization, such a world could well be the result of the reckless course he has chosen.

A world turned upside down, indeed.

6 thoughts on “Blog No. 182. Trump, Trudeau and Kim: The World Turned Upside Down”

  1. Doug: another fine piece of analysis, a breeze that helps lift the fog of confusion. The individual acts of the President, taken in isolation, seem confusing and inexplicable. In a future blog, perhaps you can tackle the bigger question: do these acts reflect some sort of coherent overarching political philosophy? Does Trumpism represent anything beyond the impulses of the moment?

  2. A much greater intellect than I , Once said, “ I do not agree with what you say, but will defend etc.etc..”
    Perhaps my “Make America Great Again.” Cap will have room to add……M. G. I. ‘s

  3. We must do everything in our power to fight against the actions and policies of the evill man who
    occupies the White House. He is obviously rotten to the core.

    His followers in government and the people who still think he is a good president, ie the vast majority of registered Republicans, cannot be allowed to ruin America. Nearly all of these people call themselves patriots but they are, in fact, money-grubbers or ignoramuses.

    Our task must be to call out Trump and his gang of thieves at every opportunity, to challenge their illegal actions in court, to march in the streets, write letters to the editor and, of course, to vote for what we believe is right and just.

    I commend Doug for helping us understand how destructive the Trump administration has been and to warn us against future danger.

    My immediate concern is for the children being seperated from their parents at the border and placed in makeshift shelters, perhaps never to see them again. Border agents often lie to these children, saying they are just getting a wash-up and will be back with their parents in a few minutes. The parents are in fact being transported to federal prisons. The breakup/destruction of families in this manner is revolting, and a blatant violation of the Geneva Accords. It must be stopped.

    I urge all of your readers to take a stand now before Trump starts herding his opponents into modern-day concentration camps. He is a destroyer of liberty, an enemy of freedom and a would-be tyrant —make no mistake about it. We can and we must stop him.

    Flipping the House of Representatives in the fall so that Trump will be impeached would be a giant step forward.

    1. I hope that you will reconsider your comment that “His followers in government and the people who still think he is a good president, ie the vast majority of registered Republicans, cannot be allowed to ruin America. Nearly all of these people call themselves patriots but they are, in fact, money-grubbers or ignoramuses.” Stereotyping, from either the left or right, is a mistake of manners and morals and it is at the root of many of our problems today. I am puzzled and disheartened by the level of support for Trump among Republicans but sweeping insults are neither just nor likely to be effective. Ad hominem attacks against a large group of people are seldom a good idea politically, as Hillary (“Deplorables”) Clinton discovered to her cost.

  4. Is this the Summer of our discontent? Will no one take up the banner and lead us out of this quagmire? I think not but it is time we looked into the mirror and try to determine who we really are. I am off to Church I will pray for us all

Comments are closed.