David A. Andelman, visiting scholar at the Center on National Security at Fordham Law, wrote an op-ed for CNN about U.S. foreign relations under the Trump administration.
From somewhere above 31,000 feet, heading to his North Korean summit in Singapore, Donald Trump pitched a hand grenade into this weekend’s G-7 meeting of the world’s leading democracies.
In a fit of pique over remarks by the G-7 host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump reversed his decision to sign a closing communiqué carefully crafted by his six fellow members, tweeting from Air Force One, “I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!”
This last-minute reversal raises a dangerous question: How can Kim Jong Un trust that any agreement he makes with Trump would last beyond the setting of the next sun?
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Still, G-7 2018 is in the books. The leaders of the other six leading democracies in attendance have now scattered to their homes. Yet the wounds Trump has left behind are deep and will not soon be forgotten.