A Warning

by Anonymous

The prediction that the event was going to be “bad” became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The hosts were upset when the president arrived late. Trump berated other leaders about “unfair trade practices.” He grew irritated with Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe, at one point apparently telling him in a meeting: “Shinzō, you don’t have this problem [of illegal immigration], but I can send you twenty-five million Mexicans and you’ll be out of office very soon.” He tossed Starburst candy at German chancellor Angela Merkel, remarking, “Here, Angela. Don’t say I never give you anything.” And then he left the summit early, rounding off the visit with a tweetstorm blasting Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau as “so meek and mild…very dishonest & weak,” and announcing that the United States was backing out of the joint statement signed only hours earlier with the other leaders. What a horrible mess, I thought. This isn’t how we’d act toward our enemies at an international summit, and these were our close friends. Not only that, we’d wasted an opportunity to show solidarity with them on important issues where we had common interests. Perhaps worst of all, the president alarmed everyone at the summit by publicly calling for a nation-state rival, Russia, to be readmitted into the G7 meetings. Russia had been cast out of the group over its invasion of Crimea. Since then, Vladimir Putin had done little to demonstrate he was a responsible world partner, but the president questioned why ...