World

Trudeau No Longer ‘Most’ Admires China After Failed Trade Mission

REUTERS/Fred Dufour/Pool

David Krayden Ottawa Bureau Chief
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China’s charm has apparently lessened for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Global News reports.

After a week of having his free trade overtures rejected by the Chinese leadership because they want no part of Trudeau’s progressive trade agenda, Trudeau has decided he has more admiration for Britain.

In a bizarre give-and-take with an adoring crowd in 2013, Trudeau lauded China because of its “basic dictatorship.”

Trudeau was running for the leadership of the Liberal Party at the time and was speaking at a “Ladies Night” fundraiser in Toronto. One supporter asked him, “Which nation, besides Canada, which nation’s administration do you most admire and why?”

The soon-to-be prime minister replied, “You know, there’s a level of admiration I actually have for China. … Because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime.”

But this week, after a getting the short shrift from China on his much-ballyhooed but tentative free trade talks, Trudeau reflected on his previous appraisal of China and the “basic dictatorship” that doesn’t want to discuss gender equality issues and trade in the same paragraph.

After telling reporters his imagined wide breadth of experience as a result of his traveling “around the world all my life,” Trudeau urged his audience to consider the United Kingdom because “the U.K. does a significantly better job than us in programming legislation and getting that through the House [of Commons]. I think there is issue to admire on that.”

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