‘Goofy,’ ‘unbecoming’: former U.S. ambassadors blast Trump over Canada
WASHINGTON — A pair of former American ambassadors to Canada have criticized what they call unhelpful and counter-productive remarks from U.S. President Donald Trump about the northern neighbour.
Barack Obama’s last envoy to Ottawa said publicly wailing about grievances actually makes it harder to resolve all the inevitable, routine trade irritants that pop up in a C$841-billion annual bilateral relationship.
Bruce Heyman said the risk of taking public pot-shots is a tit-for-tat scenario: the other side feels a need to respond and then there’s a counter-response and an escalation thereafter, so that countries are settling scores rather than solving problems.
“Words matter. Words matter diplomatically. Words matter with leaders. And I think the words that have been used have been unfortunate and have not been constructive,” Bruce Heyman told a panel in Detroit, organized Tuesday by the Council of the Great Lakes Region.