The anger of American allies, over Mr. Trump’s decision to impose tariffs, is palpable.
“Patently absurd” is what Liam Fox, the British trade minister, called them. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said they were “illegal,” while Mr. Trudeau said they were “insulting and totally unacceptable” — and that was in the carefully worded public statement. In a phone call with Mr. Trump, he was said to be even more blunt.
Before the summit meeting, finance ministers from the other six countries that form the Group of 7, or G-7, condemned Mr. Trump’s trade decisions in an extraordinary rebuke of a member nation’s president. And some of the leaders themselves have threatened to boycott the usual end-of-meeting communiqué. A senior Canadian official said a statement by only Mr. Trudeau, the gathering’s host, is possible.
Asked about the upcoming discussions in Canada, Ms. Merkel, the famously taciturn leader of Germany, said they would be “difficult.”
There have been disagreements within the G-7 in the past, including a long chill between the Europeans and President George W. Bush over the Iraq war. When President Ronald Reagan put missiles in Europe, his counterparts branded him a cowboy who would start World War III.
But rarely — if ever — has there been the kind of visceral and unanimous outrage at an American president among the United States’ most important allies, who for decades have seen the closest of relationships with the leader of the free world as a paramount foreign policy priority.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly poked his counterparts in the eye — ignoring their pleas to remain a part of the Paris climate treaty, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact and the Iran nuclear deal, and more recently by branding their steel and aluminum industries threats to national security, and therefore subject to tariffs.
So when Mr. Trump disembarks Friday morning from Air Force One for a day and a half of closed-door meetings in the resort town of La Malbaie, the president can expect a subzero reception for what some observers have begun calling the “G6+1,” a reference to the political and diplomatic isolation that Mr. Trump has created for himself with his unilateral trade and security actions against his friends.
