DONALD TRUMP IN SINGAPORE: THE DIPLOMACY OF A CHIMPANZEE

"The surreal meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in Singapore on Tuesday was perhaps best summed up by the performance of former basketball star Dennis Rodman. Wearing his “Make America Great Again” red baseball cap, dark sunglasses and a shirt emblazoned with his marijuana cryptocurrency sponsor, Mr Rodman broke down in tears on CNN as he declared June 12 a great day for the whole world. Mr Trump’s rambling press conference at the conclusion of the summit only enhanced the aura of reality television spectacle. In more than an hour of banter with a room full of reporters, the US president revealed a list of American concessions that went well beyond anything Mr Kim could have imagined. Along with a promise to end joint military exercises with South Korea, Mr Trump said he expected a formal peace treaty between the two countries would be signed soon and indicated his strong desire to eventually remove around 30,000 US troops stationed in South Korea (it does not appear to have been consulted before Mr Trump decided to unilaterally end the joint exercises). In that context, the short joint statement signed by the two men can only be interpreted as a victory for the North Korean dictator. Apart from bland commitments on both sides to establish new relations and work towards peace, the document committed Pyongyang to merely “work towards the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.... Mr Trump chose to ignore the fact that Mr Kim’s regime interprets that phrase as the removal of America’s nuclear umbrella from South Korea in exchange for denuclearisation in the north. In outlining the concessions he had extracted from Mr Kim, the US president complained he had not had enough time at this summit to agree a more comprehensive “de-nuke” agreement. If Mr Trump changes his mind and attempts to ramp up sanctions again it is now very unlikely China would be willing to enforce them. Beijing has watched this summit from the sidelines but will celebrate Mr Trump’s talk of troop drawdowns and cancelling US military exercises, which he called “very expensive” and “very provocative”. One of China’s most treasured goals is the eventual removal of US troops from its neighbourhood. At one point in his press conference, Mr Trump provided some insight into his mindset when he asked everyone to “think of it from a real estate perspective”. He advised Mr Kim to imagine the potential of his “beautiful beaches” if he were to stop using them for artillery exercises and built condos on them instead....".

Jamil Anderlini, "Kim Jong Un outmanoeuvres Donald Trump in Singapore" The Financial Times. 12 June 2018, in www.ft.com.

"To see him fumbling with our rich and delicate language is to experience all of the horror of seeing a Sèvres vase in the hands of a chimpanzee".

Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh, The Tablet, 5 May 1951.

Nothing, I declare nothing draws to mind Evely Waugh's great put-down of Steven Spender more than the performance of the American President in Singapore earlier this month. To say as the Financial Times correspondent does that the North Korean Dictator Mr. Kim ran rings around the American President, would be kindness. The fact of the matter is that the American President appears to have had no idea what he was doing or saying in these negotiations and the end-results fully display this fact. Statements such as:

“We will be stopping the war games [with South Korea] which will save us a tremendous amount of money. It is very provocative 1.”

Display fully and easily the essential idiocy of allowing the American President, au fond an ignorant braggart, bounder, montebank, charlatan and rotter, to 'negotiate' anything. Much less a topic as complex and as intricate as the North Korean nuclear issue. The Trump Presidency is an almost daily exercise in masochism for anyone who has the interests of the West, of Christian Civilization at heart. It gives every evidence of being a perpetual nightmare. On an ongoing and daily basis. From the denunciation of the Persian nuclear accord (which is infinitely better than any accord that will ever come out of North Korea), to the apoplexy inducing Presidential idiocy at the G-7 Summit. Being a Burkean Conservative, it is my fundamental hope and desire that 'President Trump' will be soon impeached and forced from office, with jail being clear prospect for this transparent fraudster. The only possible good aspect of the Trump Presidency in that instant would be that his example will put paid to anyone ever again from such a 'background' ever wishing to become President of this or any other country.

1. For this quotation, see: "In quotes: Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un". In the Financial Times, 12 June 2018 in www.ft.com.