Trudeau stabbed us in the back: U.S.

Trump’s advisers blame Canada for G7 fiasco; France, Germany hit back at Washington

Protesters demonstrate in the Free Speech Zone outside La Malbaie on June 9, 2018, during the G7 Summit.

The U.S. blamed Canada on Sunday for the disastrous ending to the G7 summit, saying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “stabbed us in the back”, while American allies held Washington responsible.

Just minutes after a joint communiqué, approved by the leaders of the Group of Seven allies, was published in Canada’s summit host city Quebec, U.S. President Donald Trump launched a Twitter broadside, taking exception to comments made by Mr. Trudeau at a news conference.

“He really kinda stabbed us in the back,” top U.S. economic advisor Larry Kudlow said of Mr. Trudeau on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “He did a great disservice to the whole G7.”

U.S. trade advisor Peter Navarro, speaking on “Fox News Sunday”, reinforced that message. “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,” he said.

Not endorsing statement

Before his departure from Canada on Saturday, Mr. Trump tweeted: “Based 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 Communiqué as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!”

Mr. Trudeau had told reporters that Mr. Trump’s decision to invoke national security to justify U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminium imports was “kind of insulting” to Canadian veterans who had stood by their US allies in conflicts dating back to World War I. Mr. Trudeau said he had told Trump “it would be with regret but it would be with absolute clarity 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.”

French President Emmanuel Macron’s office reacted Sunday by saying that “international cooperation cannot be dictated by fits of anger and throwaway remarks”.

And German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas tweeted Sunday that Mr. Trump had partly “destroyed” Washington’s trusting relationship with Europe by pulling out of the joint communique.