There’s a media spin war at work against Canada with Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro doing their versions of Giuliani for MSM, somehow connecting the G-7 with the Singapore Summit… making no damn sense. (especially as a diplomatic signal to the North Koreans)
Somehow lost is the notion that the provision requiring a national security reason to implement tariffs has consequences and requires actual reasons.
Kudlow seemed drunk on air. Navarro’s excuse is his being seen as a pariah within the Cabinet.
The reality was that Trump threw a fit because the G-7 told him to stuff his attempts at a tariff war, with the net result becoming a G-6 trying to tolerate a peevish POTUS*
Attacking Canada as a way to impress Kim Jong Un is, to put it mildly, a bizarre strategy. After all, the conflicts with Canada and North Korea are not commensurate. Canada is a longstanding ally and America’s biggest trading partner that, at worst, has created hurdles for the sale of America lumber and milk. North Korea is a country that America has technically been at war with for nearly 70 years and has threatened to nuke America and its Asian allies. In what way would bluster against Canada impress Kim Jong Un at all or even register as something worthy of notice?
newrepublic.com/...
But Kudlow made clear that the real motive for the spat is North Korea.
“Now, POTUS is not gonna let a Canadian prime minister push him around, push him, POTUS, around, President Trump, on the eve of this—he is not going to permit any show of weakness on a trip to negotiate with North Korea,” Kudlow said. “Kim must not see American weakness. It’s that short.” Kudlow added that Trudeau was “pouring collateral damage on this whole Korean trip, that was a part of Trudeau’s mistake. Trudeau made an error, he should take it back, he should pull back on his statements.”
Trump's decision not to endorse the joint statement came just hours after all nations had agreed to sign the document, despite previous fears that trade tensions between the U.S. and its allies would lead to the U.S. being excluded.
Tensions over trade have ratcheted up in recent days after Trump's decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Canada and the European Union have also threatened to slap tariffs on U.S. goods such as blue jeans, bourbon and yogurt, in retaliation to Trump's tariffs.
Trump had also criticized dairy prices from Canada earlier in the week.
thehill.com/...
- Trudeau called it “kind of insulting” for Canadians to be deemed a threat having fought “shoulder to shoulder” with US in so many wars. 1/
- 2/ This is apparently the comment that led Kudlow & others to claim Trudeau “stabbed Trump in the back”. What is required to invoke national security exception under WTO?
- First, “security interests relating to fissionable materials or the materials from which they are derived”
- 3/ Second, threats “relating to the traffic in arms, ammunition and implements of war and to such traffic in other goods and materials as is carried on directly or indirectly for the purpose of supplying”
- 4/ Third, actions “taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations”.
- Fourth, “to prevent any contracting party from taking any action in pursuance of its obligations under the United Nations Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security”
- 5/ Has Canada, or allies UK, France or Germany, met any of those conditions? Is it reasonable for the PM of Canada to say it is “kind of insulting” to be categorized as such a national security threat? Please advise.