G7/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump will travel to a sleepy village in Quebec on Friday [6-8-18] to meet with the leaders of America’s closest allies for a summit meeting that usually ends with a moment of global camaraderie — the ‘family photo’ that captures presidents and prime ministers smiling for the camera. This year there won’t be many grins. Mr. Trump is the black sheep of this family, the estranged sibling who decided to pick fights with his relatives just before arriving to dinner. The dispute, Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser, acknowledges, is ‘much like a family quarrel,’ but with the potential for vast diplomatic and economic consequences for the world. The anger of American allies, especially about Mr. Trump’s decision to impose tariffs, is palpable. Ahead of the summit meeting, finance ministers from the other six countries that form the Group of 7, or G-7, condemned Mr. Trump’s trade decisions in an extraordinary rebuke of a member nation’s president. And some of the leaders themselves have threatened to boycott the usual end-of-meeting communiqué. A senior Canadian official said a statement by only Mr. Trudeau, the gathering’s host, is possible.”
-Michael D. Shear, “Trump Is About to Meet U.S. Allies in Canada. They’re Angry.,” The New York Times online, June 7, 2018