Fresh from his visit to the G7 summit in Alberta’s beautiful Kananaskis country, President Donald Trump had nothing but nice things to say about his host, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Calling Carney “a good man” and a “good representative of Canada,” Trump graciously answered “I think so” when asked if most of Carney’s countrymen agreed.
Clearly, Carney thinks his worship of Trump is working. But he may have badly underestimated the two-time president’s ability to play the long game.
Maybe it was the more than $250,000 table Canada’s taxpayers bought especially for the meeting. Trump’s sharp eye for quality is well known.
Daddy issues
Or maybe it was Carney’s deference to Trump, both at the G7 and at the recent NATO summit. At the NATO summit, Carney expressed muted approval for Trump’s strikes on Iran, noting that the move “does create possibility of moving forward.”
Not to be outdone, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte likened Trump to a “daddy” doling out discipline to his wayward children around the world.
Come again?
Brownnose brigade
“I think it’s a bit of a question of taste,” said Rutte when a Sky News reporter questioned his choice of metaphor, “but I think he’s a good friend, and when he is doing stuff which is forcing us to, for example, when it comes to making more investments. I mean, would you ever think that this would be the result of this summit if he would not have been re-elected president?”
So Rutte, like Carney, has come to the conclusion that if you want Trump to cooperate, all you have to do is flatter him.
But is Trump really being suckered by these globalists? And has he really moved so quickly from NATO skeptic to acolyte, demanding that every member state contribute 5% of its GDP to the alliance?
Or is Trump one move ahead of them all and quietly hoping to see both NATO and Carney implode?
On dangerous ground
Clearly, Carney thinks his worship of Trump is working. But he may have badly underestimated the two-time president’s ability to play the long game.
Retired Col. Douglas Macgregor, a former senior adviser in Trump’s first presidency, told Align that has long as he toys with the notion of buying military equipment from Europe, Carney is on dangerous ground.
Carney has stalled the acquisition of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as he contemplates other options.
‘A sore point’
Macgregor said that Carney has “made the decision to obviously invest in equipment and technology produced in Europe versus what we produce. And that’s a sore point. That’s a direct barb at Trump,” he said.
Recalling the Trump administration’s reaction to India’s recent purchase of military equipment from Russia instead of the United States, Macgregor said Carney should expect similar misgivings from the U.S. about his own decision not to shop American.
Said Macgregor:
We produce oil and natural gas. … The other thing that we produce, of course, are crops. We still are an agricultural power. … But what do we manufacture? What do we build? Not much. As a result, we tend to build a lot of military equipment and stuff, and that is important to President Trump, because it maintains assembly lines. It keeps them open. So if you really want to aggravate President Trump … you do exactly what your prime minister has done and say, “Fine, we’re not going to use any of your equipment. We’re going to use whatever is built in Europe.”
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