White House aides have warned the world that the G7 summit is not likely to go well because someone is intending to take his unfocused rage out on the globe, and he's making it personal.
The president has vented privately about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as their trade tensions have spilled into public view. [...]
Additionally, Trump has griped periodically both about German Chancellor Angela Merkel … as well as British Prime Minister Theresa May …
Behind the scenes at the White House, there have been staff-level discussions for several days about whether Trump may pull the plug on the trip and send Vice President Pence in his stead, as he did for an April summit of Latin American leaders in Peru.
Trump "does not want to be lectured" by these world leaders. He also, aides suggest, "prefers visiting places where he is feted—such as on his trips last year to Beijing, Paris and the Saudi capital—over attending summits where the attending leaders are treated as equals." In other words, Donald doesn't play well with others. Administration officials fear that he will refuse to sign on the joint communique the participating countries' leaders will issue at the close of the conference.
Sending Pence might be the best option, but according to Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, he "wants to go on the trip." He wants to go be an asshole to the leaders of the free world ahead of his trip to Singapore to meet with fellow despot Kim Jong Un, with whom he has much more in common.