Donald is coming to Canada, and he's spoiling for a fight. Julian Borger and Ashita Kassam write in The Guardian:
This year’s conclave, opening on Friday, is being referred to as the G6 plus one, or the G7 minus one. It promises to be a showdown between the US president and everyone else.
Usually by this point the sherpas, diplomats who prepare for the summit, are working on the punctuation in the final communique. This time no one knows whether there is enough common language to put together any kind of joint statement by the meeting’s end on Saturday.
Trump sows chaos wherever he goes. And, by the time he leaves the summit, he will have sown more chaos:
On Wednesday, Trudeau said he was preparing for heated exchanges at the summit. “We know there will certainly be frank and at times difficult conversations around the G7 table,” he told reporters. “Particularly with the American president on trade, on tariffs.”
The last serious discord among the G7 was over George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq. But the rift this time is sharper and broader. Even the UK is not siding with Washington. Trump is challenging the norms of western cohesion and rules-based trade that have been in place since the aftermath of the second world war.
Trump is challenging the world order. He wants a new one. And, like the many buildings he claims he owns, he wants his name on it. Justin Trudeau is about to be severely tested.
He might take a lesson from his father -- who would probably bring his slingshot.
Image: Quora
18 comments:
You cannot 'negotiate' with someone who is not prepared to listen except to those who's views coincide with his own, I hope the rest of the leaders send him home with an earful and a swift kick where it gets his attention, Owen. Meanwhile lets press ahead with trade links to a broader collection of partners as in the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership about to be presented to parliament, the U.S. of Eh may think they own the world but times they are a changing, something that Trumph has yet to grasp.....
I agree wholeheartedly, Rural. Trump behaves like a Mafia Don. Be believes he can make offers others can't refuse. What Trump needs -- and deserves -- is a collective refusal.
.. its become laughable and frightening at the same time.. the non sensible behaviour and the daily deceits and conceits of Donald Trump, his family and enablers, officials.. The bluster of Huckabee Sanders, who simply buffalo's the press room daily.. and then there is Sean Hannity. I fail to see how he avoids jail, recently advising Trump crew to destroy their encrypted phones
But its Trump who needs to gone, along with Pense et al.. Hell take the entire GOP. What sheer nonsense will the G 6 or 7 ..reveal, though Trump may not even show up.. and go golfing instead. Trudeau needs to be on his game.. or at least show us he has a spine
The spotlight is on Justin, sal. He has to lead the opposition to Trump.
While I'm not accusing anyone else of it, I'm not going to let Trump's misconduct turn me into an unquestioning fan of trade liberalization. There is a possibility that this will happen to some of us. We should listen carefully, noting particularly what isn't said but lies hidden in a heap of assumptions.
Your last sentence is seminal, John. There are all kinds of unstated assumptions behind neoliberal economic policy. The most prominent assumption is that man is a rational decision maker. Mr. Trump proves the fallacy behind that assumption.
I keep encountering the mindset that somehow things will improve if only _________(fill in your choice).
"Things improving" is so 20th century.
We have entered the entropic age. Everything is actually beginning to come asunder.
Nothing will be improving except chaos.
This weekend, in Malbaie P.Q., you will see clear evidence.
There are those who call our time The Great Unravelling, Deacon. Current evidence suggests that they are right.
I sense a shitstorm coming, Owen. Perhaps the best Canada and the others can hope for is to find some consensus among themselves that isolates Trump and allows them to weather the storm for a couple of years in hope that the next US leader will be sane.
With deep regret I must agree with Deacon Jester that we have entered an entropic age, incapable of mustering the considerable popular and political will necessary to salvage our democratic institutions. This is a very widespread malaise that seems to reach into every corner of our global civilization.
Trump brings home the reality that some things can be too broken to fix. Recognizing that, accepting a new reality, can be the key to forging new and more functional relationships. Maybe it's time for the world to stop revolving around the United States. The trick would be to escape America's gravitational pull without succumbing to China's. Many today believe that we're on the cusp of a global recession that will eclipse the Great Recession of 2007-2008. The evidence does seem to support that. If we must go through this mega-recession we must handle the post-recession recover much more astutely than last time to create something enduring to the benefit of the many, not the few.
I can't escape the feeling that the world is on the brink of global disaster, Mound. It's been a long time coming. Trump's the catalyst -- although he's too ignorant to understand the role he's playing in that disaster.
Has there been a non-natural global disaster or catastrophe in the past 75 years that did not occur as a direct result of the actions of the US?
And still we kowtow.
The U.S.A. under Trump should be a quarantined, Deacon -- for everyone's health and safety. We'll see if Trump and his compatriots can be effectively isolated.
Harvard prof and Foreign Policy columnist, Steve Walt, writes that America's allies are hoping to disengage with Trump to the extent possible, hope he doesn't launch a war on Iran or a full-blown global trade war and recession, and pray that Trump will be gone as quickly as possible. Walt boils down Trump's approach to foreign relations into two central themes:
"The first theme is a tendency to view relations with other countries on a purely bilateral and transactional basis, and to judge success or failure solely by whether the United States is getting the better end of the deal in each case. In Trump’s mind, you’re either the con man or you’re the mark, and a successful foreign policy is one where every bilateral relationship works out better for the United States than it does for the other side. If both sides gain equally, or if both sides gain a lot but the other side gets a bit more than the United States does, then it is by definition a bad deal, even if it America better off in absolute terms. Like any good huckster, Trump always wants to get something for nothing, and to be able to tell the American people that he’s somehow persuaded foreigners to make tons of concessions without giving them anything in return. You know: like promising that Mexico will somehow pay for a wall that it doesn’t even want.
"The second and closely related theme is a propensity for bullying. Whether he is threatening to tear up existing deals, rain “fire and fury” down on an enemy, or impose tariffs on friend and foe alike, Trump’s diplomatic modus operandi rests on the belief that the United States has a nearly infinite capacity to impose its will on other states by issuing threats. If Trump refuses to reaffirm Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, other states will pay the United States to defend them. If he denounces NAFTA and threatens to leave it, Canada and Mexico will quickly give in to whatever U.S. negotiators demand. If he threatens China with a trade war, President Xi Jinping will leap to do whatever it takes to make Trump happy. And if he tears up the Iran nuclear deal, the ayatollahs won’t dare to resume enrichment and move closer to Russia and China. If he treats longstanding U.S. allies with contempt, ignores their earnest pleas on the Iran deal, and then slaps tariffs on them too, they’ll just meekly accept the humiliation and quietly back down."
One thing is clear. If Putin is angling to weaken the Western Alliance he couldn't find a better instrument than Donald J. Trump.
BTW, Deacon Jester's reference to the Entropic Era piqued my curiosity. I stumbled across a great article in the journal, Foreign Affairs, from June, 2014. The author foresaw the evolution of Mad Trump syndrome and the ascent of chaos. His conclusion - this is our new normal.
https://the-mound-of-sound.blogspot.com/2018/06/learning-to-let-go.html
I don't know what will transpire at the G-7 meeting in Quebec, but I think the shitstorm has started, Mound. Ontario elected Doug Ford today and I can't believe that the voters there did not recognize the same signs we are seeing in spades with Donnie the Disaster to the south of us.
As far as any government managing a successful recovery after another disastrous recession, I just don't think we've got any politicians that have the interest, willpower, or ability to do anything different than what politicians/bankers have done in the past.
I'm so thankful that our household stuck to our budget, didn't get carried away and spend money we didn't have - even if it was cheap - which will allow us to ride out the economic upheavals that I'm afraid many other families will suffer because there was cheap money out there and they found it hard to resist the urge to spend!
I'm concerned about our three sons, Lulymay. They are inheriting a much different world than the one my wife and I inherited. The lunatics have taken control of the asylum.
Walt's conclusions seem to be on the money, Mound. Apparently, Trump plans to fly into the summit and leave early -- enough time to make his demands but not listen to the response. He's a fool, of course. But the damage he will do will be catastrophic.
An excllent post, Mound -- and a dark morning after.
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