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Trump trade fury torpedoes Canada’s G7 summit

The reportedly positive tone of the leaders’ one-on-one meeting stood in stark contrast to a week of increasingly testy public statements by Trump, following Canada’s announcement last week that it would impose $16.6 billion in tariffs against USA products on July 1 in retaliation for us tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.

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“There is a special place in hell for any for 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”, Navarro said on “Fox News Sunday”.

Trudeau made the remarks when he met with Trump during the G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Quebec, Canada on Friday, according to the official G7 website.

G7 leaders issued a joint pledge today to combat protectionism and cut trade barriers as they wrapped up a fractious summit in Canada soured by a row over the U.S. imposition of tariffs on its allies.

The picture, snapped Saturday by German government photographer Jesco Denzel, shows a standing Merkel with her hands firmly planted on a table staring down at Trump, who is seated with his arms folded and eyes glaring.

Trade dominated the two-day summit that began on Friday with leaders of Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Britain and Italy returning to the topic repeatedly in meetings, at a lavish dinner and by a fireside pit late into the evening.

Trudeau said he told Mr. 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”. “So we are going in with a really positive spirit”.

He warned that the USA will take any action necessary to defend Americans from unfair trade practices. There were even signs that the group had overcome their differences regarding Russian Federation.

“I think there are various discussions about alternatives that would not be that, and that would not be entirely destabilizing for a trade deal, and I think we are open to creativity”, he said.

The thorny issue of Mr Trump’s planned tariffs on steel and aluminium imported into the U.S. has upset the consensus among industrialised nations on a transition to freer trade.

She said: “If there are to be any conversations about Russia’s future in relation to this particular group, they have to change their ways, they have to change the route that they are taking and the sort of activity they are involved in”.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Nafta negotiators are “pretty close” to agreeing on some kind of sunset clause, a sticking point in talks, while warning the three-way pact can only survive if major changes are made. “Americans stand with you, even if our president doesn’t”. A subsequent visit in April this year warranted only a working lunch for the German leader, several days after fellow European Union leader Macron got the full, formal state dinner treatment from Trump.

On Saturday, Trump lapsed into his pre-summit rhetoric again, calling Trudeau “dishonest and week” in a fresh series of angry tweets. “And no subsidies. I even said, ‘no tariffs!'” Trump insisted.

“We are like the piggy bank that everyone is robbing and that ends”, he told a news conference before flying to Singapore for denuclearzation talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

President Trump said that he expects other nations to provide fair market access to American exports.

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Once again, Trump emphasized that the days of the USA getting the short end of the stick in its trading relationships with the world were over under his watch.

One 'rant,' rough talks sour G7 mood in confrontations with Trump