Trump made an ass of himself at the Group of Seven (G7) meeting over the weekend, but he was not the only one.
As soon as Trump finished barking at our closest allies and trading partners, his top economic and trade advisers took to the airwaves to suck all the oxygen out of the room and, in the process, they (incidentally?) revealed what this is really all about.
Trump's top trade adviser Peter Navarro attacked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Trump's top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Trump's outburst was a show of strength.
"There's a special place in hell for any foreign 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," trade adviser Peter Navarro told Fox News. [...]
"POTUS is not going to let a Canadian prime minister push him around … on the eve of this," [Kudlow] said firmly. "[Kim Jong Un] must not see American weakness."
Trudeau has done a "great disservice" to the G7 by saying Canada had to stand up for itself and that the U.S. was responsible for the problem with tariffs, Kudlow added.
Trudeau was actually quite calm, measured, and as polite as can be expected when firmly standing up to Trump, but in Trumpworld any opposition to the Mad King, no matter how reasonable it is, is perceived as "weakness."
Past actions and statements made by North Korea suggest that they are not so dumb or gullible as to believe ranting at the G7 makes Trump look tough, or whatever. It's more likely they will see his childish posturing as a weakness if they even care at all what happens at the G7. Kudlow's disclosure on worldwide television that this is all posturing makes the latter even more likely and, in any case, it's not as if scolding Justin Trudeau will make Kim Jong Un more willing to give up his nuclear weapons.
The idea that irrationally attacking our allies makes you look tough, or that simply looking tough will get you what you want, is the stuff of insecure, octogenarian men whose idea of strength is based on the Marlboro Man.
The Marlboro Man died of cancer.