The Canadian Kid |
It was so obvious Trump was going to come out of the G7 looking like a fool.
Like so many others, Trump completely underestimated Justin Trudeau - who long ago assembled a team to prepare for Trump to throw the inevitable trade tantrum. As the NYTimes said:
The Canadians could see the trouble looming in the summer of 2016. Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s trade minister at the time, found herself, along with millions of Canadians, fixated on the unfolding United States presidential election, and it was becoming impossible to overlook the gathering clouds of protectionism.
Trudeau and team studied and learned well that you can't get down into the mud with Trump - he is a creature of mud and he has the home advantage. They are remaining calm and polite which is driving Trump crazy - he doesn't understand calm and polite.
And Trudeau set the stage long ago by being so cordial to Trump and the feckless Ivanka - Trump assumed Trudeau was another toady like the Republicans he so routinely rolls over. He thought he was going to roll over Trudeau.
If you watch the documentary "God Save Justin Trudeau" you can see Trudeau doing the same with the conservatives in his own country in 2012 who thought Patrick Brazeau was going to crush him in the boxing ring. They just couldn't imagine this polite friendly guy could be strong.
Film-makers Eric Ruel and Guylaine Maroist depict Trudeau’s spectacular victory in October as a fight, showing it was exquisitely planned from the start.
Trump of course doesn't understand planning & preparation as he famously kept saying he was going to go into talks with Kim Jong Un and just wing it.
It turns out Trump still doesn't get what happened with Trudeau, and still can't understand how Trudeau, whom Trump thought was a little wimp, just like the right-wing Canadians did before Trudeau crushed Patrick Brazeau in the boxing ring, could stand up to him. According to this piece in Vanity Fair, TRUMP SPENDS NORTH KOREA DEBRIEF OBSESSING OVER JUSTIN TRUDEAU:
Yes, speaking to reporters in Singapore following his summit with gulag enthusiast Kim, Trump continued to lash out at our mild-mannered neighbor to the north and promised to mete out more financial punishments for allies that dare match his provocations.
“When I got out to the plane,” Trump said. “I think that Justin probably didn’t know that Air Force One has about 20 televisions. And I see the television and he’s giving a news conference about how he will not be pushed around by the United States and I say push him around? We just shook hands. It was very friendly . . . No, I have a good relationship with Justin Trudeau. I really did, other than he had a news conference, that he had because he assumed I was in an airplane and I wasn’t watching. He learned. That’s going to cost a lot of money for the people of Canada. He learned. You can’t do that. You can’t do that. We have a big trade deficit with Canada . . . It’s either $17 [billion] but could actually be $100 billion. You know they put out a document, I don’t know if you saw it. They didn’t want me to see it, but we found it. Perhaps they were trying to show the power they have. It’s close to [a] $100 billion-a-year loss with Canada. They don’t take our farm products—many of them.”
In the movie "God Save Justin Trudeau" you can see Trudeau talking about how he is often underestimated. And nobody underestimated him more than narcissist ignoramus bully Donald J. Trump, the perfect target for Trudeau and his exquisite planning.