AEI - Short Publications: "Out of a long, long list of irritants, two stand out as the most fateful moments in the weakening of Washington's once enthusiastic admiration for Paul Martin.

The first came in February 2005, when the Martin government announced that Canada would not after all join the US missile defence plan. At the Bush-Martin summit meeting in Ottawa in November 2004, Martin had led Bush to believe that Canada would join. The reversal startled and offended the Americans, and especially President Bush, who sets great store by the personal trustworthiness of international leaders. (He famously disliked Germany's Gerhard Schroeder much more than Jacques Chirac, because he felt that Chirac had always been straightforward about his opposition to the Iraq war, while Schroeder had violated a promise not to campaign against it.)"