To make things even more confusing, the G6 +1 further subdivided into the G5 + 1 + 1 when Trump chose to disassociate himself from everything that had been agreed and to abuse those leaders he could remember having met. So it was wholly understandable that the British prime minister was a little shaky on the details of what had taken place at the G5 +1 +1 when she came to hand in her Canadian mini-break homework to the Commons in the form of a statement. [...]
Even this assessment was too much for Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader declared the entire summit to have been a failure. And the responsibility for its failure rested solely with one person. Normally he likes to blame May for everything but as she hadn’t really been there, Corbyn directed all his anger at the American president. The White House policy of putting America First was a menace to the international rules based order. Steel tariffs, Iran, climate change. [...]
The prime minister stumbled on, putting her hands over her ears whenever MPs suggested that what the summit had really shown was that Britain was better off remaining in a customs union with the EU than hoping for a trade deal with the US. Not at all, she insisted. The intensity of the disagreement between the UK and the US was a sign of how strong the relationship really was: the time to worry with Trump was when everything appeared to be running smoothly.
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