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It was the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, who went the farthest, in saying that trust could be very rapidly destroyed with a tweet, and that a united Europe should be the response to “America first.”

The furor risked overshadowing any progress that had actually been made at the G7, such as $6.8 billion in funding commitments for girls and women in developing countries, a new oceans strategy and a five-party “plastics charter” excluding the U.S. and Japan.

Photo by Cole Burston/Bloomberg

At the summit itself, Trump and his counterparts exchanged sharp words. During one meeting, an official said the other leaders, and Macron in particular, took pains to list off the U.S.’s various import tariffs to Trump, in an attempt to show him that trade barriers are not one-sided and Americans are not victims of the rest of the world. Later, at a cultural event, there was a “really good atmosphere,” another official said.

Trump changed none of the positions he was being criticized for, but when the president took off on Saturday morning saying the G7 had been “tremendously successful” it seemed that a potential crisis had been averted.

On Sunday, despite the tweets, Trudeau’s office was still under the impression that the communique stands — although the real question may be whether the U.S. can be trusted to support what’s in it. Top officials had been working around the clock and sleeping little to put it together. The seven leaders had added extra meetings on Friday night and Saturday morning to discuss the text. All had signed off on its eight pages, and it had already been published by the time Trump made his grievances known.