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| G7 Chaos: Merkel and Trump staring each other down |
Trump, who railed against globalization in his election campaign, said he wanted all G7 nations to remove any tariffs, subsidies and other trade barriers.\
"You go tariff-free, you go barrier-free, you go subsidy-free," Trump opined, calling it "the ultimate thing." He said other world leaders reacted positively to the idea.
His economic adviser Larry Kudlow backed up the call, saying, "We’re going to clean up the international trade system."
But Trump's claims that he is in favor of global free trade would appear contradictory to his recent imposition of tariffs on US allies, much to their collective discontent.
Trump insisted US allies would yield to his demands of a trade rebalance, warning that the US would crush any opposition in a potential trade war.
"If they retaliate they're making a mistake …We win that war 1,000 times out of 1,000."
"They do so much more business with us than we do with them that we can't lose … When you’re down $375 billion you can't lose," he said, likely referring to the trade imbalance with China.
He said he could tell from the smiles of European leaders at the G7 that they knew that "the gig is up" and that they would negotiate terms with Washington.
Trump repeated his call for Russia to be allowed back into the alliance of world powers. It was kicked out of the G8 in 2014 for annexing Crimea from Ukraine.
"We're looking for peace in the world. We're not looking to play games."
"I think it would be good for Russia, I think it would be good for the US, I think it would be good for all of the countries of the current G7."
But when asked about returning to the G7 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that Moscow "never asked anyone to return" to the G7 and that Russia was happy working with the G20.
EU-Digest
