Advertisement

Trump adviser says there’s a ‘special place in hell’ for Canadian leader

Trump advisers Navarro, Kudlow accuse Canada PM Justin Trudeau of "betraying" the United States.

White House Director of Trade Policy Peter Navarro (Credit: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
White House Director of Trade Policy Peter Navarro (Credit: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow and his trade adviser Peter Navarro blasted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday for “betraying” the United States and engaging in “bad faith diplomacy” at this week’s fractious G7 summit.

Kudlow told CNN Sunday morning that Trudeau “stabbed [the United States] in the back” with his comments during a press conference the previous day that Canada will take “retaliatory measures” in response to the Trump administrations tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, the European Union, and Mexico.

“You don’t just behave that way. It is a betrayal. It is essentially double crossing,” Kudlow told CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Watch:

Asked what Trudeau did that amounted to betrayal, Kudlow criticized the Canadian leader for holding a press conference in which he called U.S. tariffs “insulting.”

Advertisement

He added that Trump “is not going to let a Canadian prime minister push him around … on the eve of this — he is not going to permit any show of weakness on a trip to negotiate with North Korea.”

Presumably, as Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale pointed out on Twitter, Kudlow was upset that Trudeau’s comments could hurt Trump’s chances of impressing Kim Jong Un ahead of his meeting with the North Korean dictator in Singapore this week.

Navarro took Kudlow’s comments one step further, telling Fox News’ Chris Wallace that “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 … And that’s what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference.”

Kudlow’s and Navarro’s comments come on the heels of a tense G7 summit that left relations with U.S. allies even more fractured than before. Trump refused to sign a previously-negotiated joint statement written by all seven countries, prompting French President Emmanuel Macron to say in a statement Sunday that “International cooperation cannot be dictated by fits of anger and throwaway remarks … Let’s be serious and worthy of our people. We make our commitments and keep them.”

Advertisement

Following his departure from the summit Saturday evening, Trump tweeted that Trudeau was “Very dishonest & weak” during the summit, drawing criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain who responded with a very different message for U.S. allies: “Americans stand with you, even if our president doesn’t.”

Asked about Navarro’s comments, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said, according to reporter Daniel Dale, “Canada does not conduct its diplomacy through ad hominem attacks. We don’t think that that is a useful or productive way to do business.”