'It just gets harder and harder': World leaders dread seeing Trump at G-7 next week

World leaders seem to view Trump as an unruly toddler. Many hope to get through the upcoming G-7 summit in France without any serious incidents, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

“When countries like Denmark are in the firing line, you just try to get through the summit without any damage,” a G-7 diplomat told the Post, referring to Trump’s recent attacks on Denmark for refusing to sell Greenland to the United States.

“Every one of these, you just hope that it ends without any problem. It just gets harder and harder,” the diplomat added.

Trump leaves on Friday for the annual meeting between leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.

Because of Trump’s erratic behavior, G-7 leaders “are increasingly separating themselves from the U.S.,” Heather Conley, director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Post.

In a separate interview with CNN, Conley said the non-Trump leaders at the summit are “trying to figure out who takes up the new mantle, and can they hold on either until the U.S. returns to that leadership role, if it will, or are they going to have to survive in these six dynamics without the U.S.”

Trump preemptively rolled a diplomatic grenade into the midst of the gathering of leaders from seven countries by suggesting Russia be readmitted to the yearly gathering. Russia was expelled from the G-8 after the country invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014.

Trump plans to use the gathering to brag about the U.S. economy, the Post reported. He heads to the summit shortly after the Department of Labor revised job growth figures showing half-million fewer jobs were created in the past several months than originally estimated, and many economists worry a Trump recession is on the horizon based partly on Trump’s disastrous trade war with China.

Trump has a long history of embarrassing himself on the global stage and causing problems when world leaders gather.

Last year, when Canada hosted the G-7, Trump stormed out early so he could meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. From Air Force One, Trump demanded (via Twitter) that the United States remove its signature from the joint agreement the world leaders signed. (Months later, there was no evidence the State Department followed through on the demand.)

At the time, a Canadian official described Trump as “a pathetic little man-child.”

French officials in the past have not been shy about calling out Trump when he utters ridiculous statements aimed at their country. Most recently, Trump was reprimanded after he suggested using flying water tankers to put out the fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral, which French officials said would have destroyed the iconic building.

Soon Trump will head to France, and leaders hope to minimize whatever damage he will do while there.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.