Written by Laurie Kellman
London (AP) The lesson plan for a course on dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump early in his second term might look something like this: Don’t be so flattering. He sends policy rabbits racing across the globe stage; don’t chase them. Await the threats to find out exactly what he wants, then, if you can, figure out how to provide it to him.
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With each summit and meeting in the Oval Office, the leaders of other nations are deciding on strategies and tactics in an effort to establish a cooperative relationship with the emboldened American leader who leads the most powerful military and oversees the greatest economy in the world. At NATO, the outcomes were evident as officials showered Trump with accolades, cut sessions short, and eliminated controversial topics from the agenda.
Foreign leaders are learning from each other’s experiences, which date back to Trump’s first term, when he allegedly threatened to pull the United States out of the alliance, given that he controls geopolitics. One of the teachable Trumpisms is his contempt for conventional diplomacy. For him, America comes first, it’s exceptional, and it’s not even close.He follows his instincts, and everyone else follows suit.
For instance, they’re discovering that Trump’s instructions, threats, and social media posts can move him from one priority to another due to their rapid pace. He characterizes himself as flexible in negotiations, citing instances where he threatened significant penalties on China, Canada, and Mexico only to back down during discussions. Furthermore, although taking credit for the ceasefire in the Iran-Israel war, Trump has not yet fulfilled his pledge to negotiate an end to the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
For instance, nobody understands why Trump threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs on Spain this week, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever told reporters Thursday during the conference in Brussels. It won’t be the first time that things don’t work out as badly as they initially appear, he said, if the tariffs never materialize. or that he has a change of heart. Every time Mr. Trump says something, I don’t jump to conclusions like other leaders do.
This month, two summits that are oceans apart—NATO in the Netherlands and the Group of Seven in Canada—showcase divergent strategies for the US president who is approaching the end of his sixth month in office.
During a news conference held in Alberta in mid-June, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney greeted Trump with a happy birthday and a little flattery: “The G7 is nothing without U.S. leadership and your personal leadership of the United States.” However, Carney abruptly ended the session when Trump became politicized, stating, “We actually have to start the meeting.”
Trump seemed to give a nod of approval. However, when the crisis between Iran and Israel grew more intense, he abruptly left the summit one day early on Monday, June 16.
Trump announced a complete and total ceasefire on social media by Wednesday after ordering U.S. pilots to drop 30,000-pound bombs on two important underground uranium enrichment installations in Iran early on Sunday. Trump’s delicate ceasefire agreement with Iran and Israel came together, teetered on the verge of collapse, and finally came together during the 48-hour frenzy that followed.
Even for Trump, the level of irritation and vulgarity with which he publicly attacked the Iranians and Israelis was noteworthy. He used the f-word to chastise the two nations for fighting one another after the deadline had passed. He went on to question if he still supported NATO’s mutual defense guarantee.
The president was in this state of mind as he flew toward a gathering of the transatlantic alliance that he has long criticized.
In any case, NATO is fundamentally American. Without American heavy lift, air refueling, logistics, and other services, the Europeans and Canadians could not function. Above importantly, the United States’ arsenal of nuclear weapons serves as a deterrent.
The June 25 summit was reduced to a few hours and focused on one topic, which Trump pushed: increasing member countries’ defense spending to lessen the burden on the US.
The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine is definitely not on the agenda. However, since Trump chastised him in the Oval Office in February, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has since climbed his own learning curve on Trump management, met with Trump. The Ukrainian leader has adopted Trump’s transactional manner and adopted a conciliationist stance.
According to numerous reports, the objective was to refrain from taking any actions that would lead to Trump leaving or blowing up the event. Trump received an invitation to eat with the royal family and overnight at the royal palace in The Hague. The idea to increase their expenditure targets for their one-for-all defense against Russia was anticipated to be approved by the majority of members.
Secretary-General Mark Rutte had been instructed by the other NATO ambassadors to use his Trump-whispering abilities. He predicted Trump would have a huge success there in a private, presumptive text message to the president, which Trump shared publicly on his own social media accounts. Rutte compared Trump’s efforts to defuse the Iran-Israel conflict to a father stopping a fight in the schoolyard at the summit.
According to Trump, he likes me.
The backlash was rigid. Rutte’s stance was described as being meek and weak by Lithuania’s former foreign minister.
According to Gabrielius Landsbergistweeted, the phrase seems to have been lifted from the adult entertainment sector. It makes Europe look like a destitute beggar in the eyes of both our Eastern adversaries and our Transatlantic allies.
It was the most recent evidence that leaders prefer to deal with him by admiring him, if not very popularly in some quarters.
The strategy has been employed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since at least 2018, when he referred to Trump as Israel’s best ally ever and even named a settlement in the Golan Heights after him. He was treated to several rounds of golf by the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.Trump received an invitation from French President Emmanuel Macron to attend Bastille Day in 2017, which included a lavish military procession, as the honored guest.
Trump’s demand that member nations allocate 5% of their gross domestic product to defense projects was somehow met by Rutte. A sizable portion of such funding may come from their military assistance to Ukraine. However, the deal left significant issues unanswered, such as the possibility of a security void following the U.S. troop decrease that is anticipated to be disclosed later this year.
NATO was called the North Atlantic Trump Organization by social media posters.
Fiona Hill, a former top White House national security advisor to three U.S. presidents, including Trump, told the BBC that the goal of this summit has been to manage him and try to get him to say the right thing at the right time.
By the summit’s conclusion, attendees were praising it for what it did not do as much as for what it did. Trump arrived. He didn’t start arguments, depart early, or blow it up. Crucially, NATO did survive, and Trump has stated that he has changed as far as the alliance is concerned.
What about his castle stay? He claimed to have had a wonderful sleep.
This story was reported by Associated Press reporters Samya Kullab in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Lorne Cook in Brussels.
