Having left the rubble of the Western alliance behind, the president* touched down in Singapore in the early American hours of Sunday like a…well…like a thief in the night. And The New York Times took that moment to inform the gobsmacked world that the president* always really has been Helen Caldicott.

When President Trump declared that he did not really need to prepare for his legacy-defining meeting with North Korea’s leader, he drew sighs or snickers from veterans of past negotiations. But he had a point: In his own unorthodox way, Mr. Trump has been preparing for this encounter his entire adult life. For an American leader who came of age in the early 1960s, when the United States and the Soviet Union stepped to the brink of nuclear annihilation, the meeting with Kim Jong-un strikes a personal chord, offering Mr. Trump a historic chance to rid the world, and his own presidency, of the greatest threat from atomic weapons.

Coming after the president*’s schoolyard pissing match in Quebec, it takes a rare kind of analytical mind to continue to write about “his own unorthodox way” without even a whisper of irony. Also, the available evidence is that the president* has no “personal chords” to strike. He has nothing but appetites. And, having done all this, he gives the world a quick vision of the foul stewpot that passes for ideas in his addled head.

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PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, “US Tariffs were kind of insulting” and he “will not be pushed around.” Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 9, 2018

This inelegant shit-fit was prompted by Trudeau’s remarks at the conclusion of the G7 summit, in which the Canadian prime minister had the audacity to suggest that he would act in Canada’s best interests, and as a cooperative partner among allied democracies, no matter what effect that has on the unorthodox dealmaker with the deep personal chords.

It was followed by the widespread distribution of a photo in which German PM Angela Merkel appears to be lecturing the president* about going to the Boys room without a hall pass. I’d mock further, but I fear that picture is going to be worth a couple of million votes among the rubes who installed him in the first place. After all, John Bolton, who never should have been allowed closer to government than the Capitol South Metro station, tweeted out his interpretation of the Merkel photo in which Bolton praised the president* for the set of his jaw.

To be honest, free-trade messianism always has made my teeth itch. It gets pitched as a kind of economic nirvana most vigorously to its most immediate victims. It treats collapsing Pakistani factories, massive oil spills, and Southeast Asian sweatshops as unfortunate byproducts rather than essential parts of what we’re being sold. And the question of whether the new global economy can co-exist with democratic self-government seems to me to be an open one still.

But it remains a question best hashed out among democratic, self-governing countries. And the president* has just decided he'd rather not be part of a club that would have him as a member. Instead, he’s pitching the readmission of Russia to the organization, despite the fact that Russia’s economy pales next to those of India, Brazil, and California. And it also appears that he’s piqued because every other country wants to do something about the climate crisis that he doesn’t believe exist.

Jesus, take the wheel.

Getty Images

And there is no arguing that the president* is acting alone in this dangerous foolishness. His chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, a former cable-news pundit best known for putting the bull in bull market, went on CNN on Sunday to elaborate on Trudeau’s treachery. From The Canadian Press:

Speaking to CNN today, Trump adviser Larry Kudlow says he personally negotiated with Trudeau during the two-day G7 summit in Quebec's Charlevoix region and insists the U.S. agreed to the language in the communique in good faith. Kudlow says the White House has taken issue with Trudeau's comments during the news conference that Canada must stand up for itself and that recently imposed U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum are "insulting." Kudlow says Trudeau's actions were a "sophomoric play" and says the prime minister stabbed his U.S. allies in the back, which he argues did a great disservice to the whole G7.

You have to admit it. This is a creative—and, yes, “unorthodox”—way to celebrate the anniversary of the Normandy invasion, and those Canadian, Australian, Belgian, Greek, French, Czech, and Dutch soldiers who died on the beaches there. He couldn’t have done more to advance the interest of the world’s autocracies, including Russia, if he danced the kazatsky. And now he’s off to talk to Kim Jong-Un with all those unorthodox personal chords echoing through his empty head like a bowling ball dropped into a well. I wish vice principal Merkel had given this dolt a longer detention.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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