What Canada’s spat with Saudi Arabia reveals about Trudeau’s scatterbrained foreign policyWashington Post, Aug 12, 2018, J.J. McCullough
The worsening spat between the governments of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been mostly analyzed from the Saudi angle: a case study of the kingdom’s eggshell sensitivities and bossy expectations of deference. Yet the story also reveals much about Trudeau’s own inadequacies as a statesman, and the thoroughly confused nature of his foreign-policy priorities.
Trudeau is often elevated as one of the west’s champions of principled liberal internationalism, a world leader who offers a marked contrast with the populist nationalism of Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orban, et al. Insofar as Trudeau has been an outspoken proponent of immigration, multiculturalism, and Muslim empathy, the contrast is undeniable. At the same time, his commitment to a broader world order seeking to consolidate the gains of liberal reform and resist the pull of authoritarian chauvinism has always been tenuous, in large part because the prime minister appears to have persistent difficulty in distinguishing the two.
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