There is a special place in the unemployment line reserved for certain Trump staffers, but here I am not talking about Sarah Huckabee Sanders and other members of the Trump communications team who regularly lie to the American people. That would be too obvious. I am not even referring to EPA Director Scott Pruitt who is guilty of numerous ethical offenses, any one of which would have gotten him instantly fired in any previous presidential administration, yet he somehow manages to hang on to his job. They all absolutely belong in the unemployment line, but it may take a while for them to make that transition.
Today I am referring to members of Trump’s economic and foreign trade staff including Larry Kudlow – the top White House economic adviser and Peter Navarro – a trade adviser to the president. I would also be referring about Trump himself, but it is unlikely that Trump will ever be truly unemployed, even when he is eventually kicked out of the White House. Their sins, insulting the popular prime minister of our neighbor to the North, Canada, certainly this country’s most reliable and staunchest ally in the world.
The offense Trump tweet and the remarks made by Kudlow and Navarro on cable TV have been heavily published by the news media. However, original remarks made by Justin Trudeau which apparently set off the fire storm, and context in which he made those remarks, have not been as heavily published, at least not in their entirety. So I found an original video clip of the Trudeau news conference and I transcribed the following directly from that recording.
At a news conference following the G7 Summit a reporter asked Trudeau the following question, “There are 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 1st, that you are 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 replied; “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 that it is based on a national security reason that for Canadians who, either themselves, or whose parents, or community members stood shoulder to shoulder with American soldiers in far-off lands and conflicts from the First World War onward … that it’s kind of insulting. And I 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 Americans have unjustly applied to us. I made it very clear to the President that it is not something we relish doing, but it is something that we absolutely will do because Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around.”
Now I don’t have a thin skin like Trump, but as an American that seems like a perfectly reasonable and even polite answer to the question asked. Every person who has take at least one macro economics course understands that if one nation, unprovoked, suddenly institutes new tariffs on other countries, the nations adversely affected are going to respond in kind to what could be the first salvo in a nasty trade war. What would Trump and his staffers have Trudeau do? He is the leader of a sovereign country which is the 2nd largest in world by area, has the 10th largest GDP, and the 3rd highest GDP per capita? Did they expect the Canadian Prime Minister to bow down to Emperor Trump and stammer, “Yes sir boss; whatever you want to do is fine by us poor Canadians.” And then again you certainly wouldn’t expect his answer to provoke the kind of vitriol which quickly poured forth from the Trump Administration.
On Air Force 1 in route to meet with Kim Jung-un, Trump took to Twitter, “PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, “US Tariffs were kind of insulting” and he “will not be pushed around.” Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!’ (Never mind that the US enjoys a trade surplus with Canada and our tariffs on Canadian tobacco products ranges as high as 200% to 300%.)
Trumps tweet was a signal to his Dobermans attack dogs, and attack they did. On the program Face the Nation Larry Kudlow said that Prime Minister Trudeau “insulted us”, “he decided to attack the President”, “took pot shots at him” and “he betrayed the President, he betrayed the entire G7” (I must have missed all of those attacks on Trump in Trudeau’s comments.) Kudlow also implied that Trudeau’s “attacks” on Trump had the effect of making Trump look weak going into Singapore meeting with Kim Jung-nu, so of course Trump had to lash back. (Really?!) When asked whether Trudeau had not in fact made his views clear to the Trump and the American delegation during the summit, Kudlow understandably avoided answering the question. (A truthful answer would have run counter to his diatribe.) Kudlow then went on to defend Trump’s insistence that Russia be readmitted to what would again be the G8. (Alienating our friends and embracing our enemies is a good thing? Where is the emoji that shakes its head in disbelief when you need it.)
Later during a CNN interview Kudlow then said that Trudeau, “Stabbed us in the back” and also stated that “he (Trudeau) did a great disservice to the entire G7”. Kudlow also said Trump worked together “beautifully” all of the leaders during the summit that he (Kudlow) personally worked with Trudeau to craft a mutually acceptable post summit communique on trade that all of the leaders could agree on and then Trudeau “betrayed and doubled crossed the President”. (I think that Kudlow would have a difficult explaining why the German government pointedly released a photo after the summit of Trump defiantly sitting with his arms crossed with all of the other leaders of our Western allies standing around him apparently trying to convince him to steer away from a trade war. (Yep, things went beautifully during the G7 Summit.)
Asked why did Trump then walked away from the post summit communique that all of the other leaders endorsed, Kudlow replied, “ask Trudeau”, and never provided a coherent answer to that question. (The real answer is that our petulant President became very angry when the Canadian Prime Minister publicly stood up to his tariff provocations and refused to give in to his demands. (Trump essentially said to the leaders of all of our closest allies, the hell with the G7; don’t they know we are America the Great.) Apparently trying to defend Trump was very stressful for Larry Kudlow; he had a heart attack that evening.
Bad as all of that was, the worst was yet to come. Peter Navarro, one of Trump’s trade advisers blurted out on Fox News Sunday: “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. That’s what weak, dishonest Justin Trudeau did, and that comes right from Air Force One.”
Whoa!!! There is a “special place in hell” for the leader of our closest ally? If anyone around the world didn’t believe that the Trump administration has gone completely rogue, that statement offers definitive proof. No one ever expected the Trump presidency to be a normal one, but this is far beyond the pale. Citizens of other nations must be looking at the American people and wondering how we could be so stupid to elect such a man to our highest office. Only Trump would tolerate for even one second one of his spokesmen saying such a thing without an immediate apology to all concerned and an instantaneous firing the guilty individual. Obviously not only have neither of those two things occurred, but with this President, they are very unlikely to happen in the future.
While all of this is very embarrassing, it was also an incredibility stupid stunt to pull by the Trump administration. First of all, Trudeau is popular in this country, much more popular than Trump. A recent Lincoln Park Strategies/ASPR poll found that Justin Trudeau had a net favorability rating of +11 percent in the United States versus Donald Trump’s -12 percent rating. More importantly, the attack on Trudeau has caused the Canadian people to rally around him to defy Trump’s attempt to bully Canada into trade concessions.
According to the New York Times: “It was extremely undiplomatic and antagonistic,” Frank McKenna, a former Canadian ambassador to the United States, wrote in an email. “It was disrespectful and ill informed. All Canadians will support the prime minister in standing up to this bully.” He added. “Friends do not treat friends with such contempt.” Even Mr. Trudeau’s political foes rose to his defense. “We will stand shoulder to shoulder with the prime minister and the people of Canada,” Doug Ford, the Trump-like renegade who was recently elected premier of Ontario wrote on Twitter. Steven Harper, the former Conservative prime minister whom Mr. Trudeau beat to become prime minister, told Fox News on Sunday that Mr. Trump had made a mistake targeting trade relations with Canada. “I can understand why President Trump, why the American people feel they need some better trade relationships,” he said. But, he added, “this is the wrong target.”
If an American president wants another country to do something, it isn’t a good idea to attack its leader. In addition, the Trudeau incident adds to Trump’s reputation of putting America first and everyone one else in the world be damned. This adds to the popular support of the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and other countries around the world as they defy Trump’s demands for trade concessions. It was a stupid stunt indeed.
Trump’s self-proclaimed great negotiating skills may worked in the real estate business when his “its my way or the highway” approach intimidated less powerful people with fewer financial resources, but they are proving to be woefully inadequate on the world stage. I will make a prediction right now. As countries around the world erect equivalent tariffs on American goods in response to Trump’s actions, instead of upping the ante by imposing even more tariffs on those countries and further igniting a real trade war, Trump will do nothing and he and his administration will go mum on the subject. Then as the effects of the additional tariffs raised by all sides start to be apparent to the American people in the form of higher prices, the tariffs will be removed as quietly as possible. After all, Trump hates to admit he was wrong and that his bullying tactics didn’t work.
Cajun 6/11/2018