G7 Summit (June 10, 2018)
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The takeaway: These meetings are pre-planned down to the last detail, there's no reason to meet unless you're all going to agree on something bland like the Friday communique. I suspect all week long, Trump told them he was going to be a jackass and they should prepare for his bull headedness, so I suspect all week long they worked on this precise pose: Trump being an obstinate ass and the other leaders of the world looking like exasperated parents. By now these leaders have properly internalized Trump for their own constituencies: Merkel is an inch away from a no-confidence vote, at least she can go back home and say it's all Trump's fault (and find much succor from her citizenry). Macron looks like a tough guy, John Bolton looks like a fucking ghoul, Abe is above all this. That said, let's be sure to remember that the G7 means nothing, these meetings mean nothing and, again, working out how best to make Trump look like a party pooper is in everyone's best interest. If the G7 disappeared tomorrow, no one would notice or care, it doesn't matter and its existence at the moment merely produced this already-classic photo (and nothing else because there's nothing for the G7 to do except produce photo ops).
The setup: If the G7 is an annual photo op, then the Singapore Summit was a seemingly impossible photo op. For decades the Kims of North Korea have demanded a public audience with the President of the USA and for decades American presidents have demurred. But Donald Trump is a different kind of president and he took Kim up on his offer. So here they are shaking hands shortly before signing an utterly meaningless piece of paper that pretty much matched the last piece of paper we signed with North Korea (in the Obama years). So what happened? Well...this now-classic photo...and not much else.
The takeaway: I dunno, I can't for the life of me figure this one out, except that they each called each other's bluff...but they were both bluffing...so neither of them had anything in the end. It's like a theater company that booked a bunch of shows then forgot to rehearse. The world talked up this meeting like it was gonna be important and nothing happened. They shook hands, Trump looks more like Alfred Hitchcock than I'd ever noticed before and Kim is actually a little taller and fatter than I would've thought...but otherwise...that was pretty much it. Since then, Kim met once more with Xi in Beijing, called off all further meetings with South Korea, may have made a secret trip to Vladivostok, and otherwise has done nothing, said nothing and blown off most of his meetings with Sec State Pompeo and his underlings (where the actual work of diplomacy gets done). So who got played? Trump got nothing out of it, Kim got nothing but this now-classic photo (though I'm betting a top drawer Singapore hotel would probably be a pleasure palace to a great leader such as this), and the world isn't any safer. Indeed! The USA-North Korea relationship seems to be exactly where it was this time last year. After all the weird shit that has gone down in the last 12 months, we're in the exact same place! The Singapore Summit will go alongside Al Capone's Vaults for all-time over-hyped letdowns.
The setup: Unlike the G7 which could disappear tomorrow and no one would notice, NATO is so rock solid that dissolving it would likely take a major war or multiple presidential administrations. The general perception that Trump clamoring for the Europeans to spend more on defense was some great crisis to the institution is just hogwash. The POTUS complaining about money is the purest indication that there isn't anything more important to complain about. So, though NATO is important while the G7 is not, this meeting was pretty much the same (though Shinzo Abe doesn't appear in this now-classic photo).
NATO 2018 (July 11, 2018)
The takeaway: I think Trump genuinely believes the Europeans should pay more for their defense. And since the USA is paying so much for European defense, if POTUS really had something he wanted to discuss about the defense of Europe, I think he'd be eager to talk about it. Turns out there isn't anything to say about Ukraine or Serbia or Montenegro, so Trump went back to complaining about money. Now personally I agree that the Europeans should be paying more for their defense, it is unifying and empowering on their part to exert their control over NATO (and letting American presidents have this much power over their borders sure looks kinda dumb right now, don't it?); but the Europeans aren't ready to go down that road, they're still figuring out how their money works, so letting the Americans shoulder the burden in staring down Putin is something that will continue for a while. Rather, the Europeans will go back to their constituencies and turn Trump's NATO rhetoric back to his trade war (presumably his method of extracting value from allies) and blame all their local problems on Trump (and they'll be successful because...well, he's a total douche). The good news is NATO is so rock solid and without problems, they can spend an entire summit together and just goof around on nonsense (like producing this now-classic photo).
The setup: Supposedly Trump called for a one-on-one summit with Putin a few months back and now the time had come for the two to go mano-a-mano (and the interpreters to go lingua-a-lingua). Tongues wagged worldwide but no one knew what Putin and Trump discussed even after this now-classic press conference.
Trump-Putin Summit (July 15, 2018)
The takeaway: I dunno. What do I care what they talked about? At this particularly point in time, neither of these guys has anything to offer the other. There's no room for USA to budge on Ukraine or sanctions, no room for Russia to budge on Syria, Iran or oil. (If they were talking about anything really juicy it was probably North Korea, who knows what Putin knows about Kim?) Trump's one taboo back home is anything related to Russia, so I suspect this meeting is purely for Trump to annoy his political foes (they are his lifeblood). There's nothing for Trump and Putin to talk about,so this meeting was likely purely social, just a coupla joes ditching their wives and commiserating over political nonsense. (Or perhaps they peed on hookers together or whatever the conspiracy theory du jour is, I can see that, too) At any rate, there's nothing for them to talk about, so what difference does it matter what was said?
We increasingly live in a world where people want their leaders to take pictures together. The G7, for example, is of little use but a photo op, the organization does nothing, discusses nothing, administers nothing, and isn't even what it purports to be (top 7 economies in the world....so why isn't China there? India? Saudi Arabia? Or even *gasp*...Russia?). Seriously, the G7 does not need to exist and if Donald Trump harrumphs around and ruins the get-together, then honestly....who gives a shit? I got a better idea: let's never have another G7 meeting ever again! I'm all for multi-lateral organizations that can get stuff done but the G7 is not one of those, it can be done away with. No way POTUS can screw up something that doesn't happen.
NATO, on the other hand, is not going away and if there were grave matters to discuss, they would get discussed....not by the leaders, of course, the serious matters would get discussed by the various under-secretaries that actually do that kind of work. When this many national leaders get together it is either to discuss something very important or something not important at all. (I got two grand on the latter, who's taking the former?) This is a meeting that doesn't need to happen and the only point of it is the sure spectacle of getting this many leaders together (want a grave matter? How about discussing how comfortable everyone is with NATO member Turkey invading two other countries for the purposes of genocide and seems to be intent on annexing their ill-gotten territory...are we cool with that? Hmmm....never came up). If any one of those leaders wants to grandstand and make it all about him/herself, they are free to do so because these meetings don't mean anything.
Now the Kim summit and Putin summit would appear to be different, right? These aren't annual meetings where nothing but a photo-op can possibly be accomplished. These are wildly out of the ordinary affairs where important stuff must be going on, right? Well, no. In the case of Trump, he clearly loves to engineer moments like these to grab the attention--and Americans love nothing more than giving Trump attention. Meeting with Kim felt like it was going to be a breakthrough, it was not; it was all whimper, no bang. And the meeting with Putin was meant to be confusing and anticlimactic, it was meant to produce an awkward press conference and nothing more because, again, these guys have nothing to offer each other except an ambiguous public appearance together.
Trump is really good at playing the American media. The media is a 24-hour beast that needs constant feeding and Trump loves to feed. Perhaps this is undignified of the office of President...meh, it is the media that devalues the presidency by failing to differentiate between the G7 (unimportant) and NATO (indispensable). It is the media that pisses in the pool by not differentiating between the presidency and some other attention-hungry celebrity (like, say, Stormy Daniels).
Trump is the effect, not the cause. We've been on this road a long time and Trump is the end of it. I don't know what comes next (at the moment it feels like another 4 year term for Trump, which is even more shocking than his original victory!) but after Trump all this shit will be different. I never really felt it before but a third party seems to be in the offing. The Republicans and Democrats are gradually skewing to their extremes, time for a middle way to emerge.
As for foreign policy, North Korea is the same problem it always was. Libya is a mess, Yemen is embarrassing for all thinking, feeling human beings, Syria is still a clusterfuck, Ukraine is no closer to resolution. Otherwise, not bad. Trade wars are not anyone's idea of a good time but the worst of it has yet to hit the fan and its not hard to imagine all this trade kerfuffle actually leading to new and improved trade relations for everyone. Our world leaders still have time for photo-ops and perhaps that is a good thing.
As for the state of Trump, here's the good news:We increasingly live in a world where people want their leaders to take pictures together. The G7, for example, is of little use but a photo op, the organization does nothing, discusses nothing, administers nothing, and isn't even what it purports to be (top 7 economies in the world....so why isn't China there? India? Saudi Arabia? Or even *gasp*...Russia?). Seriously, the G7 does not need to exist and if Donald Trump harrumphs around and ruins the get-together, then honestly....who gives a shit? I got a better idea: let's never have another G7 meeting ever again! I'm all for multi-lateral organizations that can get stuff done but the G7 is not one of those, it can be done away with. No way POTUS can screw up something that doesn't happen.
NATO, on the other hand, is not going away and if there were grave matters to discuss, they would get discussed....not by the leaders, of course, the serious matters would get discussed by the various under-secretaries that actually do that kind of work. When this many national leaders get together it is either to discuss something very important or something not important at all. (I got two grand on the latter, who's taking the former?) This is a meeting that doesn't need to happen and the only point of it is the sure spectacle of getting this many leaders together (want a grave matter? How about discussing how comfortable everyone is with NATO member Turkey invading two other countries for the purposes of genocide and seems to be intent on annexing their ill-gotten territory...are we cool with that? Hmmm....never came up). If any one of those leaders wants to grandstand and make it all about him/herself, they are free to do so because these meetings don't mean anything.
Now the Kim summit and Putin summit would appear to be different, right? These aren't annual meetings where nothing but a photo-op can possibly be accomplished. These are wildly out of the ordinary affairs where important stuff must be going on, right? Well, no. In the case of Trump, he clearly loves to engineer moments like these to grab the attention--and Americans love nothing more than giving Trump attention. Meeting with Kim felt like it was going to be a breakthrough, it was not; it was all whimper, no bang. And the meeting with Putin was meant to be confusing and anticlimactic, it was meant to produce an awkward press conference and nothing more because, again, these guys have nothing to offer each other except an ambiguous public appearance together.
Trump is really good at playing the American media. The media is a 24-hour beast that needs constant feeding and Trump loves to feed. Perhaps this is undignified of the office of President...meh, it is the media that devalues the presidency by failing to differentiate between the G7 (unimportant) and NATO (indispensable). It is the media that pisses in the pool by not differentiating between the presidency and some other attention-hungry celebrity (like, say, Stormy Daniels).
Trump is the effect, not the cause. We've been on this road a long time and Trump is the end of it. I don't know what comes next (at the moment it feels like another 4 year term for Trump, which is even more shocking than his original victory!) but after Trump all this shit will be different. I never really felt it before but a third party seems to be in the offing. The Republicans and Democrats are gradually skewing to their extremes, time for a middle way to emerge.
As for foreign policy, North Korea is the same problem it always was. Libya is a mess, Yemen is embarrassing for all thinking, feeling human beings, Syria is still a clusterfuck, Ukraine is no closer to resolution. Otherwise, not bad. Trade wars are not anyone's idea of a good time but the worst of it has yet to hit the fan and its not hard to imagine all this trade kerfuffle actually leading to new and improved trade relations for everyone. Our world leaders still have time for photo-ops and perhaps that is a good thing.
Trump just needs to not be the 6th guy, right?
