Four Years of “Make America Great Again” and Trump Running Out of Democratic Allies

After four years of criticizing U.S. allies and dramatically ignoring their views, Donald Trump is having trouble calling a quorum of the G7 now set for the White House and Camp David. Angela Merkel has said no to attending the meeting and Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau won’t commit. This you may recall is the famous conference that was first slated to be held at Trump’s Doral, Florida resort and has wandered to various locations.

Since half the G7 appear disinterested in meeting Trump, especially given that he may be out of office shortly, Trump is looking for someone else to meet with, of course, not without denigrating our main allies: “It’s a very outdated group of countries.” Again, not surprising, he wants Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi to attend.

The G7 foreign minister made it clear at the March meeting when they refused to accept Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s and Trump’s effort to cajole them to accept the “Wuhan virus” as an official label that his and the U.S. influence with them was diminished. Trump’s alienation from the many G7 participants has been developing for years following his rejection of the Climate Accord, the Iran Agreement, and most recently, defunding the World Health Organization.

Leaders at the G7 summit, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and
President Trump, in Canada on June 9, 2018 | Jesco Denzel/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock