Power Politics: Why Donald Trump Keeps Enemies Close And Allies Scared

BAILEY T. STEEN | WEDNESDAY, 13 JUNE, 2018

âIt was a betrayal,â Larry Kudlow, the current chief economic adviser for the White House, told CNN addressing G7 comments Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made against President Donald Trump.
âHe is not going to permit any show of weakness on the trip to negotiate with North Korea, nor should he,â Kudlow stated. âKim must not see American weakness. They should have said to him, âGod speed, you are negotiating with the crazy nuclear tyrant in North Korea, and we are behind you.â
Only they werenât. Instead, as we approach the second year of the globally divisive Trump presidency, the most powerful man in the world stood alone heading into the historic North Korea summit⌠and he seemed better for it.
Whether unfair right-wing critics of the president dare to admit it, Kim Jong Un IS a legitimate political leader, and this IS a problem. He currently oversees a slave state where upwards of 25 million prisoners are held in gulag systems, all the while peace was held back from decades because egotism forced them to cling to nuclear weapons. Itâs not a debate as to whether heâs a legitimate leader â itâs just the sad reality of the situation â and it was former President Barack Obama who warned his successor that North Korea, Americaâs âbiggest and most dangerous problemâ, needed to be dealt with.
On Tuesday, in Singapore, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un struck a deal. They shook hands, walked the halls discussing international peace relations, dining on their lavish meals as they were surrounded by security details, which culminated in a joint statement declaring the US and North Korea will work towards the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, despite no verifiable measures to assure this happens.
It was historic that we got this far â but it required a game of power politics.
Like any partner who plays hard to get, America made an example of Trudeau, the male feminist who was so recently mocked by the media for joking he prefers to use the non-word âpeople-kindâ, so as not to offend those of the gender-fluid/demi-sexual deviant variety base he panders to.
It was the president who unloaded on the âdishonest and weakâ Canadian leader, followed by the comments from Kudlow and Peter Navarro, Trumpâs trade adviser, who told Fox News thereâs âa special place in hellâ for those who dare to speak ill of President Donald J. Trump. Proceeding to slap steel and aluminum tariffs on countries like Canada, Mexico and those within the European Union (EU).
Whether the safe posturing proves intentional or not, it seems awfully convenient for the president to play power politics footsie with a strong ally heading into negotiations with a madman he needs to lockdown. Trump believed he can afford shitposting about Trudeau, sending a quick aggressive slap on the wrist to his neighbour from the north, who already donât see eye to eye, but can the same be said of Kim Jong Un, the ârocket manâ who was recently testing WMDs strikingly close to Japanese territory while holding South Korea hostage? After all, why would North Korea dare to be enemies after seeing âfriendsâ like these?
Consider Trumpâs recent comments to reporters following the Singapore summit where the personal power posturing turned purely economic:
âWhen I got out to the plane,â Trump said. âI think that Justin probably didnât know that Air Force One has about 20 televisions. And I see the television and heâs giving a news conference about how he will not be pushed around by the United States and I say push him around? We just shook hands. It was very friendly . . . No, I have a good relationship with Justin Trudeau. I really did, other than he had a news conference, that he had because he assumed I was in an airplane and I wasnât watching. He learned. Thatâs going to cost a lot of money for the people of Canada. He learned. You canât do that. You canât do that. We have a big trade deficit with Canada . . . Itâs either $17 [billion] but could actually be $100 billion. You know they put out a document, I donât know if you saw it. They didnât want me to see it, but we found it. Perhaps they were trying to show the power they have. Itâs close to [a] $100 billion-a-year loss with Canada. They donât take our farm products â many of them.â
This is a far different tonality than the âdishonest and weakâ tweets we saw just a few days ago, prior to the meeting with a totalitarian in need of an ego check from the egomaniac-in-chief. Trudeau, attempting to save face, had to respond with his own obtuse account of the situation, telling reporters the tariffs were done on ânational security groundsâ, raising the obvious point that Canada has always had Americaâs back. Itâs odd to see someone not see the red flags of political theatre coming to bite him in the ass, but instead of playing bitch boy, the president could have further trade issues on his hands after what was Tuesdayâs victory.
âItâs kind of insulting,â Trudeau told a reporter about the tariffs. âI have made it very clear to the president that it is not something we relish doing, but it is something that we absolutely will do, because Canadians, weâre polite, weâre reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around.â

Thanks for reading!
Bailey T. Steen is a journalist, editor, artist and film critic based in Victoria, Australia, but is also Putinâs Puppet⢠on occasion.
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Cheers, darlings!! đ