Thursday 28 June 2018

Can Trump ever trust Putin?

Donald Trump's whole strategy is to develop personal relationships with the world's most controversial leaders in order to create an element of trust and possibly a breakthrough in diplomatic relations. Nothing wrong with that. But the three leaders I have in mind, Vladimir Putin, Xi Zinping and Kim Jong-un - can they ever actually be trusted? Fine, so Trump gets on well with Vlad and Xi and Kim but these are all cunning, often obtuse, sometimes deceitful leaders who know what they want and how they're going to get it. Having a friendly chap in the White House who is prepared to overlook their terrible record on human rights and their military adventures or, in the case of North Korea, their continuing pursuit of nuclear weapons, must help them a lot in their endeavours. Keep Trump smiling by holding summits every month but carry on as before. Now Trump is no fool. He knows because his national security advisers will be telling him every day that these sort of leaders cannot be trusted to do what Trump asks of them just because it's Trump who is asking. Look at Kim for example. He promised to start denuclearising once the summit with Trump was over but the latest satellites pictures show that North Koea is still building its nuclear reactor complex at Yongbyon which povides the nuclear material required for bombs and warheads. That's pretty flagrant! Does Kim think, "Well I've got Trump on side now, and Xi will back me up." When will Kim actually do something which will genuinely demonstrate that he's on the path to scrapping his weapons? Possibly never! Likewise now we know there will be a summit beween Trump and Putin, it'll be no good if Putin just carries on interfering in eastern Ukraine and killing anti-Assad rebels in Syria. Can Trump really bring about a breakthrough with Putin so the Russian leader sees the error of his ways? I really don't think so. After all, he can always say to Trump, "Hey, Big Man, you lot invaded Iraq and see what a disaster that was, so don't preach to me about military adventures." So summits are fine and building relationships is good and much needed. But if it's all smiles and handshakes and not much else, the world will not be a safer place as Trump predicted after his meeting with Kim.

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