Trump Shakes Up G7, Demands Fair 'Reciprocal' Trade

With all the mainstream media hoopla surrounding the G7 summit this past weekend in Quebec, Canada, one thing is clear: President Donald Trump, as always, dominated the narrative. And he proved once again that he relishes being the anti-establishment guy, this time sending the heads of Europe’s globalist leaders spinning. The G7 summit usually amounts to little more than a couple days of Western allies and Japan hobnobbing for photo ops while proposing various jointly agreed upon socioeconomic agendas and then jetting back home again. It’s more pageantry than policy. But this time Trump saw an opportunity to press his case that the U.S. has long been getting a raw deal from its closest allies when it comes to trade (not to mention NATO). He declared in advance, “Looking forward to straightening out unfair trade deals with the G7 countries.” But he offered the caveat, “If it doesn’t happen, we come out even better!”

Trump caught everyone off guard by throwing out an unexpected proposal — “unexpected” in light of his recent implementation of tariffs on steel and aluminum. Trump suggested, “No tariffs, no barriers — that’s the way it should be. And no subsides. I even said no tariffs.” He added, “Ultimately that’s what you want. You want tariff-free, no barriers, and you want no subsides because you have some countries subsidizing industries and that’s not fair. So, you go tariff free, you go barrier free, you go subsidy free.”

The G7 leaders were seemingly stunned, but it became increasingly obvious that this was not a direction they wished to go...

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