Following President Trump’s appearance at the G-7 summit and insults of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said the president’s actions made him “embarrassed for our country.”
“I was embarrassed that an American president acted that way, particularly when Canada and other nations were responding to the actions that Mr. Trump had taken,” Warner said during an episode of the Politico Money podcast.
“I was frankly embarrassed, embarrassed for our country,” he added. “This is not the way America leads and the way America has led the world through Democratic and Republican administrations since the second World War.”
Trump left the G-7 summit, held last week in Quebec, early, but caused a stir when he tweeted derogatory comments about Trudeau.
Following Trump’s departure from the gathering, Trudeau held a press conference and threatened retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. in response to the steel and aluminum tariffs imposed on Canada by the Trump administration.
Trudeau’s comments prompted an attack from Trump, who tweeted Trudeau was “meek and mild” during G-7 meetings and accused the prime minister of being “very dishonest and weak.”
Warner went on to criticize Trump for claiming the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada and warned false statements from the president could have lasting implications. According to figures from the Department of Commerce, the U.S. ran a trade surplus of nearly $2.8 billion with Canada in 2017.
“The president does not have much connection with factual reality, and the fact that he has created this norm where he can say anything even when it’s not factually true, I think that does long-term damage in terms of the president’s credibility with a lot of Americans and, obviously, his credibility with a lot of our allies,” he said.
Warner also weighed in on Trump’s recent summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, from which the president returned to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
After meetings between the U.S. and the North Koreans, Trump and Kim signed a joint statement outlining four pledges, including that North Korea will commit to working toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
The president told reporters after the summit he agreed to stopping joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea, and said Pyongyang committed to dismantling a missile engine testing site, though neither promise was included in the joint declaration.
Warner said he believes Trump gave up more than the North Korean dictator.
“One thing we do know is that North Korea came out a real winner. North Korea, which has been aspiring to have a meeting with a U.S. president on an equal footing since the end of the Korean War, achieved its goal. They had that international prestige raising for Kim Jong Un,” he said. “In terms of the United States and the West, I think the jury is out. The North Koreans made, I wouldn’t even call it an agreement, but they made vague promises similar to promises that have been made in prior agreements. Whether they will honor them or not, time will tell.”
