By Jeremy Kinsman

May 7, 2025

As a Canadian going about his business in London and Paris these days, it’s been impossible not to notice a change in the reflexive greeting from foreigners. The usual friendly thaw at the news that you’re from “the unobjectionable nation” has been replaced by immediate expressions of sympathy and indignation at our new status as Donald Trump’s favourite trolling target.

The twist this week is that European and British media are lauding the stellar performance by Prime Minister Mark Carney at Trump’s White House on Tuesday, especially as relates to the belligerent threats against Canadian sovereignty.

They give top marks to Carney’s line, “Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign the last several months, it’s not for sale and it won’t be for sale, ever,” They describe Trump as mostly gracious to, and about, Carney, and tolerant of the Prime Minister’s public rebuff of the mad and hostile annexation threat, to which Trump responded “Never say never.” It’s a pity that Carney’s retort to that jibe — the adamant “Never, never, never, never, never” — was lost in the yelling of questions by the Oval Office pool reporters.

Canada’s UK and European partners had judged Trump’s 51st state declarations as beyond the pale of reality and horrible by diplomatic norms. They viewed them as problematic excerpts from his “art of the deal,” the destabilization of targets through barrages of intimidation and humiliation, such as the appalling treatment extended to President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.

Political leaders in Europe and the UK have been required to relentlessly respond to insults lofted by one MAGA figure or another — Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, etc. — who advocate for random crackpot causes of the European and British ultra-right. Trump himself has denounced the EU as a foe, “created to screw America.” He, Vance, and Rubio have each insulted EU leaders Ursula Von de Leyen, abruptly cancelling meetings at the last moment.

This is not diplomacy. It is anti-diplomacy, seemingly calculated not to serve the real interests of the United States but to sabotage them, a shift in America’s posture that leaves its democratic interlocutors both baffled and repulsed.

Trump’s second-term ritualistic deprecation of Canada via unprecedented, surreal statements and stunts evoked sympathy from our European partners. But some leaders, notably Britain’s Keir Starmer, who is angling for a US trade deal, never challenged Trump’s slanders, fearful of retribution. Carney’s election win, and now Anthony Albanese’s in Australia, are being celebrated here as front-line proxy victories against Trump’s disruptive abuses of power.

This award of virtual combat ribbons elevates our public stature. In his bilateral with Trump on Tuesday, Carney did more than stand Canada’s ground. Yet, it is noted that Trump has not relented on tariffs, confirmed by the shortest-ever answer in his super-garrulous history: a “no” to the question as to whether the “productive” meeting had changed his plans for punitive, unprovoked US tariffs.

But the meeting did apparently warm the atmosphere. Carney emphasized Canada’s commitment to increase military spending. Conventionally, smaller countries try to avoid linkages across goals and sectors, because the bigger partner can always outlink the smaller (having “more cards,” as Trump constantly reminds). But if Carney has already decided for Canadian reasons to upgrade our military effort and contribution, there is no harm in letting trump boast about it. God knows, the first rule of Trump whispering is to let the man show some “wins.”

Upgrading our military helps Canada in its relations with other allies, providing financing to support joint military infrastructure projects, and thus help to advance our US-mitigating “diversification” ambitions.

Can Carney make next month’s G7 work? First, he must avoid hubris. But his tour de force in Washington showed he has the right stuff, and for more than just bilateralism.

Carney did mention that Trump would be attending the G7 Summit in mid-June in Kananaskis, Alberta. As leader of the host country, Carney’s passing confirmation of Trump’s presence settles, for now, the question of whether the first autocratic leader of the democratic superpower that founded the group in 1973 would be at the table. Fingers are crossed that Trump will not repeat his performance at the last Canadian G7, at Charlevoix in 2018.

Much will depend this time on the forcefulness with which G7 partners spell out objections to Trump’s unilateral destruction of the multilateral trade system of open markets that the US created and directed, that Trump is now dismantling. It will be up to host and chair Carney to channel the discussion.

It’s difficult to recall a G7 whose participants were so contested at home. Carney’s post-election honeymoon is already being rained on by Danielle Smith’s referendum engineering, and the leaders of the UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Japan are all experiencing domestic disturbances.

Giorgia Meloni’s support at home, where her conservative, anti-woke values and admiration for Trump’s immigration aggression resonate, as do her support of Ukraine and the EU, has been waning. In her own Oval Office visit, she too had to suffer Trump’s extended rants about his US enemies, while getting no reprieve on tariffs. Meloni’s latest approval rating is 38% at this writing.

Starmer won a huge parliamentary majority less than a year ago, though with only 33% of the popular vote. He is now languishing in the low-20s as right-wing populist Nigel Farage ravages the political landscape, exploiting British unhappiness over high prices, scant housing, NHS miseries, cancelled trains, ubiquitous petty crime, and proliferating potholes.

France is polarized between fervent supporters of populist right-wing Marine Le Pen and populist leftist Jean-Luc Mélanchon, with lame duck Macron in the middle, also in polling Siberia, where he conceptualizes to a diminishing audience.

Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is personally unpopular, as reflected in this week’s humiliating refusal of the Bundestag to anoint him on the customary first ballot.

A committed Atlanticist, Merz is embittered by Trump’s upending of the German-American compact that has guided Germany’s direction since 1945.

Japanese Prime Minister Isheba Shigeru’s popularity has been in a spring slide due to a scandal involving the distribution of gift vouchers to Diet members, and the IMF projected this week that the Japanese economy will be overtaken by India’s in 2025 as the world’s fourth largest among nations (California jockeys between the two).

European Commission head Ursula Von der Leyen is a super-smart leader who aims to advance Europe’s cause, but who sometimes fails to look behind to count her followers.

Should Trump try at the G7 to line up the others to try to contain China, if that were even possible, G7 partners will bristle, seeing China as a partial hedge against the threat of US market exclusion.

Against this background and prognosis, Carney is the author of an outstanding electoral ascent, who first stood up to Trump before charming him, even as he took a stand for Canada. He is seen across the pond as a successful idea manager who is knowledgeable, pragmatic, and sharp.

Can he make next month’s G7 work? First, he must avoid hubris. But his tour de force in Washington — “the end of the beginning” of a new phase of Canada-US relations per his own Churchillian wording — showed he has the right stuff, and for more than just bilateralism.

Policy Contributing Writer Jeremy Kinsman was Canada’s ambassador to Russia, high commissioner to the UK, ambassador to Italy and ambassador to the European Union. He also served as minister at the Canadian embassy in Washington. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Canadian International Council.