THE AGE OF THE ENCOUNTER

Donald Trump leaned back in his chair and demonstratively folded his arms before his chest. Fixing his glaring eyes on hers, he impatiently listened to her pitch. It wasn't the first time he had heard it, nor would it be the last.

He had rebuffed her petitions on countless occasions and was determined to continue to do so for as long as it would take. Yet this time, in the stately Manoir Richelieu in Charlevoix, Québec, things were different. They had used the summit to gang up on him, the gesticulating Emmanuel Macron, the softly pleading Theresa May, his boyish Canadian host Justin Trudeau and Japan's Shinzo Abe. Their aides swarmed around him like flies. They had set a diplomatic trap worthy of the great French Cardinal himself. And he had walked right into it.

Worn down by their persistence, Trump bitterly signalled his assent to the summit's final communique. He had heard enough. Slowly he rose from his chair. Then he stopped, reached into his suit pocket, and nonchalantly threw two Starburst candies on the table. “Here, Angela”, he said. “Don't say I never give you anything.” He had never placed great stock in the art of losing.

Hustling his way back to the safety of Airforce One, Trump regained his poise. He weighed his options, and decided to rescind his agreement after the fact. “I have instructed our US Reps not to endorse the Communique”, he tweeted, before launching another angry missive calling his host Trudeau “very weak and dishonest”. Not so bad for a day's work.

It was June 2018 and over a year into Trump's presidency. For the Europeans, the G7 summit was a fiasco. Since his election in November 2016, they had fought to keep Trump inside the global club of democracies, papering over the deep fissure that had opened up across the Atlantic.