Under cloud of criticism, Trump will leave G-7 summit in Canada before it’s over.
QUEBEC CITY — President Trump is cutting short his first presidential trip to Canada this weekend, as trade and foreign policy disputes appear set to mar his planned summit with the leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies.
The U.S. president’s reception in the picturesque town of La Malbaie along the St. Lawrence River is set to be a far cry from when Ronald Reagan visited Quebec three decades ago, when he was so friendly with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney they sang a song together.
Quarreling with Trump over his protectionist tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, decision to exit the Iran nuclear accord, and retreat from global efforts to combat climate change, erstwhile American allies are turning the summit into something of an intervention.
The summit threatens to mark the outer limit of international patience for the avowed nationalistic Trump, as leaders who had sought to cajole and “bromance” the president are embracing more hardnosed tactics.
Before shortening his planned participation on the eve of his departure, Trump found himself publicly feuding with the summit’s host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and with French President Emmanuel Macron — two leaders who previously banked on flattery to win concessions with the American.
Trudeau has grown increasingly direct with his fury with Trump for imposing the tariffs on Canada’s metals industries — and for justifying the protectionist move by calling those imports a threat to U.S. national security.
Under Trump, the United States has abandoned its traditional role in the G-7. American presidents from Reagan to Barack Obama pressed for freer global trade. And they championed a trading system that required countries to follow World Trade Organization rules.
Trump’s policies, by contrast, are unapologetically protectionist and confrontational. To hear the president, poorly conceived trade deals and unfair practices by America’s trading partners have widened America’s trade deficit with the rest of the world — $566 billion last year — and contributed to a loss of millions of factory jobs.
Nelson Wiseman, a professor at the University of Toronto, said he can’t recall relations between U.S. and Canada being worse. He said the G-7 meeting will appear to be six lined up against one. Indeed, on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested in a tweet that Trump might not sign the final summit statement on G-7 priorities.
Late Thursday, the White House announced he would be leaving the summit Saturday morning, after a session on women’s empowerment but well before it wraps up.
“The president will travel directly to Singapore from Canada in anticipation of his upcoming meeting with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, Tuesday,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. “G-7 Sherpa and Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs Everett Eissenstat will represent the United States for the remaining G-7 sessions.”