Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, came to Washington to try to persuade President Trump to stop his trade war with the European Union. Juncker’s approach, reports The Wall Street Journal, involved dumbing the material down just short of the point of using finger puppets to explain what “trade” means:

Backing up his points, Mr. Juncker flipped through more than a dozen colorful cue cards with simplified explainers, the senior EU official said. Each card had at most three figures about a specific topic, such as trade in cars or standards for medical devices. “We knew this wasn’t an academic seminar,” the EU official said. “It had to be very simple.”

The Journal does not report if the cards employed pictures. In any case, even if Trump was not able to fully absorb the simplified analysis, he no doubt was able to appreciate the color and the motion.