SCMP: Donald Trump split with G7 allies because Kim Jong-un ‘must not see American weakness’, according to adviser
Dealing with Trump’s whims and last-minute changes of mind has proven a procedural nightmare, analysts claim, leaving European leaders unsure how to preserve any kind of multilateral cooperation
US President Donald Trump’s harsh words for Canada’s prime minister after the Group of Seven (G7) summit aimed to avoid a show of “weakness” ahead of his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, a top adviser said on Sunday.
“Potus [the president of the United States] is not going to let a Canadian prime minister push him around – push him, Potus around, on the eve of this,” economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on CNN’s State of the Union. “He is not going to permit any show of weakness on the trip to negotiate with North Korea. Nor should he.”
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Update: White House slams Trudeau: 'Special place in hell' for PM who 'stabbed us in the back' to try and make Trump look weak ahead of North Korea summit (Daily Mail).
WNU Editor: In politics perception is just as important as substance .... and in the big picture President Trump's trip to Singapore has far more consequences to the U.S., Asia, and the world than issuing a communique from the G-7. I regret not putting up a post before the G-7 meeting that President Trump should not go to the summit .... that he should instead send Vice-President Pence. But with tariffs and a trade war looming I guess President Trump made the decision that he had to show up .... hence the fireworks. The G-7 leaders are focused on their trade relations with the U.S., and they are "justifiably" worried that the status quo that has benefited their countries greatly is now under threat. North Korea probably did not enter the minds of Prime Minister Trudeau, German Chancellor Merkel, or French President Macron .... their focus was on President Trump and not on the consequences of how this will play in Asia .... particularly in the mind of North Korean leader Kim Jung-un. I noticed during the summit that Japanese Prime Minister Abe kept to himself .... and was actually deferential to President Trump. North Korea with its nuclear arsenal is only a few hundred kilometers away from Japan .... so yes .... Japanese PM Abe was looking at the bigger picture .... but he was the only one in the room besides President Trump who understood that.The other leaders had other priorities .... and their own domestic constituencies to placate.
Update: There is going to be blow-back from this G-7 mess. I do not know what shape or form .... but after the Singapore Summit there is going to be a reaction from the White House .... to send a message that pushing this President around will have consequences . And yes .... unfortunately it is going to hurt everyone.
15 comments:
POTUS should not have attended this summit. Even before the G-7 Summit this was my thoughts exactly!! I disagree on the. Hoice of VP though. I think it should have been a deputy secretary to the vice secretary of sf something who was sent. I think you know what I mean.
Frankly, POTUS is on the verge of VERY imporant negotiations. This distraction of pettiness of the G-7 simply isn't needed right now. In such a situation, the VP may be needed. As such, he doesn't need such a distraction either. If they MUST attend, then the meeting needs to be rescheduled. Otherwise send an assistant for this. Large organizations do this all the time.
The differences in how leaders such as Trudeau and Merkel are acting vs how leaders like Trump and Abe are acting isn't accidental. If the negotiations go wrong, American and possibly Japanese heads are on the chopping block. Canadian and Germans aren't.
Imagine the fun the press would have saying Trump was afraid of the G6 Resistance by not showing up. How’d that look to the North Koreans? He had to go.
Remember that some of these Euro leaders have worked against him before the 2016 election and after. He owes them nothing.
The other thing, if Trump will be this tough on our allies, the DPRK knows he will be tougher on them.
Look at Abe in that photo. He looks as bored and disinterested as aTrump.
Anonymous,
You present intersting points. Maybe he really did have to go for rhe reasons you suggest. Furthermore your analysis of how the media would act and how Euro leaders have worked against him are spot on.
If so, this is a crime that goes unreported. Essentialky POTUS is having to go to this meeting and divert resources away from VERY critical negotiations solely for political "optics!!"
"How'd that look to the North Koreans?" I don't pretend to know. Maybe you're right. I will present a slightly different take on this. The North Koreans know how important this is to America. Why was POTUS attending a G-7 conference in the run up to such important negotiations? Shouldn't his energies be focused on the upcoming North Korean negotiations? Knowing this POTUS still chose to attend this conference. This may suggest to the North Koreans that POTUS and his team are unfocused and undisciplined which may mean they won't take him or his team as seriously which would make negotiations harder.
Furthermore I think it is possible even highly likely that other G-7 leaders knowing POTUS would be distracted by the upcoming summit with NK and sought to take advantage hence the "blow up." The best approach may have been to send a trusted underling to the G-7 conference. If a "get tough" approach is needed the so called "underling" can do that and POTUS, VP, and others are able to focus fully on NK.
Maybe you're right here. This is just another possible "take." Besides I don't want a POTUS acting solely based upon what the media thinks.
Poster, Trump could have scheduled the DPRK to June 19 or any other date if he was worried about G7 interfering with 6/12.
He was OK with these dates evidently. This also suggests to me he used the G7 has a stage to influence DPRK and China going into the far more important negotiations ahead on security and trade.
Lol. you posters are funny! Yeah, Trump, the guy who gets up and watches 6 hours of TV every morning then wanders into work around lunch time is really playing 10th dimensional chess.
Most gnats have longer attention span than this guy, but, yeah, he really is looking seven moves ahead crafting a coherent strategy for long term American hegemony in the Indo-pacific.
The G-7 could have been designed to help Trump going into the Kim summit by showing a united front. Instead Merkel let it out days before the summit she was going to let him have it over tariffs. Denuclearization is far more important to Japan and the US than haggling over the price of milk tariffs but not so to the other Europeans.
What “ally” acts that way? Given the choice of supporting Trump with a united front or attacking him, and weakening him in the eyes of China and DPRK, the Euros chose the later. Trump attacked them instead to look like a tough guy for the Asians. I’d say this is right out of “The Art of the Deal”.
Just what an American rube would say. If one is rich, one has the all the good qualities and skills a person could have, one earned that wealth, those qualities transfer to any other endeavor, and one day, too, I will become a billionaire who is craving that upper class tax cut.
Next thing you'll say government should be run like a business. Except they are two completely different organizations, government necessarily filled with particular inefficiencies, like a military, among other things.
But hey, Trump is a bazillionaire, he can't possibly be a dips$%t, right?
Thing is we live in a republic, for better or worse, these people all of us seem to despise at one time or another represent us. A functioning state needs some professional pols, who have strong a background in law and civil service. It needs representatives from all kinds of backgrounds.
Our founding fathers, for all their wisdom and knowledge, could scarcely have conceived of, let alone contemplated the awesome power of mass communications on society, governance, the individual, publics and those elected to represent them.
Attempting to ascertain a harmony of interest among these groups during Washington and Madison's time is necessarily different and more difficult in the age of TV and modern, ever changing information technology.
British journalist and historian E.H. Carr (1892-1982) wrote that in age of mass communication, mass democracy doesn't need to be defended, but created; "...mass democracy is a new phenomenon- a creation of the last half century- which it is inappropriate and misleading to consider in terms of the philosophy of Locke or of the liberal democracy of the nineteenth century."
The ever increasing amount of knowledge and hyper changing speed of information and communication technology are exerting tremendous strain on republics everywhere that have yet to adapt.
Very respectfully Trump cannot arbitrarily set the date for the summit nor can he arbitrarily reschedule it. The date of 6/12 would have to be set in concert with NK and probably China. In other words, he can't just set the schedule for this based upon his convenience.
If anything, the G-7 conference should have been rescheduled or a subordinate sent to handle this. I think POTUS understands on some level the hatred some foreign leaders have for him but am not sure he totally gets the depth of it. After all they act in their interests. Shouldn't America do the same? I think it possible Tredau acted as he did to try and set up POTUS for failure. Keep in mind these negotiations are critical for America.
to say, as does Dimitri, ie Posterm that allies set up Trump for failure is as nutty a thing as I have seen in the past few weeks. You must be interning with Smith
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