Donald Trump bragged about the time he lied to Justin Trudeau about the trade deficit
March 15, 2018Justin Trudeau is doing the best he can. I actually think that Trudeau set some sort of example for other world leaders, showing them how to deal with Donald Trump. Trudeau was courteous when he met Trump but he didn’t allow the orange sh-thole to play-act his stupid Alpha Man thing. Trudeau also caught the eye of Ivanka Trump, and I’m sure daddy’s most precious and complicit princess has spoken highly of Trudeau to her father. Of course, none of that stopped Donny Dentures from bragging about how he lied to Trudeau when they met.
President Trump boasted in a fundraising speech Wednesday that he made up information in a meeting with the leader of a top U.S. ally, saying he insisted to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the United States runs a trade deficit with its neighbor to the north without knowing whether that was the case.
“Trudeau came to see me. He’s a good guy, Justin. He said, ‘No, no, we have no trade deficit with you, we have none. Donald, please,’ ” Trump said, mimicking Trudeau, according to audio obtained by The Washington Post. “Nice guy, good-looking guy, comes in — ‘Donald, we have no trade deficit.’ He’s very proud because everybody else, you know, we’re getting killed.
“… So, he’s proud. I said, ‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know. … I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’ You know why? Because we’re so stupid. … And I thought they were smart. I said, ‘You’re wrong, Justin.’ He said, ‘Nope, we have no trade deficit.’ I said, ‘Well, in that case, I feel differently,’ I said, ‘but I don’t believe it.’ I sent one of our guys out, his guy, my guy, they went out, I said, ‘Check, because I can’t believe it.’
‘Well, sir, you’re actually right. We have no deficit, but that doesn’t include energy and timber. … And when you do, we lose $17 billion a year.’ It’s incredible.”
The Office of the United States Trade Representative says the United States has a trade surplus with Canada.
Trump launched a blistering attack against major U.S. allies and global economies, accusing the European Union, China, Japan and South Korea of ripping off the United States for decades and pillaging the U.S. workforce. He also described the North American Free Trade Agreement as a disaster and heaped blame on the World Trade Organization for allowing other countries to box in the United States on trade.
He also seemed to threaten to pull U.S. troops stationed in South Korea if he didn’t get what he wanted on trade with Seoul, an ally. He said that the country had gotten rich but that U.S. politicians never negotiated better deals. “We have a very big trade deficit with them, and we protect them,” Trump said. “We lose money on trade, and we lose money on the military. We have right now 32,000 soldiers on the border between North and South Korea. Let’s see what happens.”
“I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’ You know why? Because we’re so stupid. … And I thought they were smart.” This is the raison d’être of the Republican party in a nutshell. This is why Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell don’t do sh-t about Trump: because Trump IS a Republican. He thinks like a Republican, he speaks like a Republican, and he spouts the essence of the Republican Party. Republicans think Americans – especially their voters – are stupid, and so they get off on lying to the “smart” people. Trump is an uninformed, ill-advised, profoundly stupid man and he is the Republican Party.
Photos courtesy of Getty.