Donald Trump is coming to Canada. Mute the trumpet fanfare and keep the petals on the rose.

The U.S. president’s arrival at the G7 summit in Charlevoix, Que., later this week will be a reminder — although really none is needed — of how acrimonious his personal interactions with other world leaders have become.

He has reportedly clashed by phone with French President Emmanuel Macron, he has sparred with British Prime Minister Theresa May and his relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel can best be described as frosty. He is playing hardball with Japan’s Shinzo Abe, despite a warm public relationship.

Abe is no doubt learning what Justin Trudeau already knows — the U.S. president can call you a friend to your face then treat you like a mortal enemy if it will serve his purpose or appease his base.

He delights in keeping the world in chaos. As G7 host, Trudeau will have to guide some blunt discussion without the meeting becoming a G6 +1, or as Trump’s chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow preferred to call it Tuesday, a potential “G1 +6.’’

Host or not, there can be no more important relationship for a Canadian prime minister than that with the U.S. president. It can also be the most frustrating, the most unnerving and take the most diplomatic skill of any relationship.

On trade, the climate, immigration, the move of his embassy to Jerusalem or his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear pact, Trump has taken diametrically opposite positions to Ottawa or simply rained pain on this country.

But, as counterintuitive as it may sound, Trudeau’s Trump management remains one of his signal accomplishments.

He is drawing on a deep well of diplomatic skill, first in dealing with a man who appears to be borderline emotionally abusive in his dealings with world leaders and sees every encounter as a zero sum game.

Trudeau has also kept his caucus, cabinet and senior staff on message.

Four of his Liberal predecessors, including his father, had trouble at home and abroad in dealing with a U.S. president and those musing about how the tariff dispute has moved Canada-U.S. relations to historic depths have short memories.

Barely 15 years ago, with a Washington-led war in Iraq looming, a Liberal prime minister, Jean Chrétien, was forced to deny George W. Bush was a “moron,’’ after a senior aide referred to the U.S. president as just that in offhand remarks at a NATO summit in Prague.

A Chrétien minister of the day called Bush a “failed statesman,” and a Liberal MP left a caucus meeting saying, “damn Americans, I hate those bastards,” before appearing on a CBC show to crush a Bush doll with her heels.

Chrétien’s successor Paul Martin finally had to boot Carolyn Parrish from caucus.

Bush cancelled a visit to Canada in response.

Richard Nixon, according to his White House tapes, thought Trudeau’s father Pierre Trudeau was an “asshole,’’ and Lyndon Johnson, after Lester Pearson denounced the escalation of the Vietnam war in a U.S. speech, scolded the Liberal prime minister with his infamous message, “don’t you come into my living room and piss on my rug.” He may or may not have grabbed Pearson by the lapels to reinforce the message.

In his weekend interview with Chuck Todd of NBC’s Meet the Press, Trudeau was at his best in describing the Canada-U.S. relationship. Some portions didn’t make it to air.

His tone has changed regarding Trump. He has lamented a lack of common sense coming from the White House and called tariffs imposed by the president “insulting.’’

Trudeau is dealing with a man who has promised him one thing in private, then done the opposite, has wilfully tossed around false facts dealing with the bilateral relationship and mocked Trudeau’s voice in public.

“Every era comes with its own challenges,” Trudeau told Todd. He will stand up for Canada, he said, but he will continue to try to work co-operatively and constructively with whomever the U.S. elects. We’re going to be polite, but we are not going to be pushed around, he said.

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While international relationships can often hinge on leaders’ interpersonal relationships, Trudeau said, in the long run it is Canadians and Americans who forge bilateral bonds.

In public, Trudeau has never lost sight of this big picture.

But if Trump comes to Canada this weekend and pees on our rug, he should be reminded, in true LBJ fashion, that we deserve better. He can be reminded politely — or not.

Tim Harper is a former Star reporter who is a current freelance columnist based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @nutgraf1

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