If the United States’ 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia was dubbed “Seward’s Folly,” one wonders what last week’s Anchorage Summit might be called. Trump’s idiocy? No, that’s already been done with some of his cabinet picks. Trump’s madness? That, too, has already been utilized, notably his new-found use of the National Guard to try to federalize Washington’s police force. Five years ago, remember, he allowed his mob to attack the Capitol and failed to lift a finger when the National Guard really was needed. “Trump’s Recklessness” is a much better descriptor, especially when you consider the longer-term effect of the Trump/Putin meeting on the international political order. In less than an afternoon, Trump elevated Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin back onto the world stage, and reduced America’s role as a superpower to little more than a photo op.
Red carpets on the tarmac, an unprecedented ride in the armored presidential limousine, and Putin usurping the subsequent joint appearance — no questions, please, so it can’t be termed a press conference – all demonstrated an appalling lack of understanding about how diplomacy works. Trump approached the meeting like a real estate mogul, not the president of the United States. That might have worked in 1867 but certainly not a century and a half later. International diplomacy is an art. You can’t just “wing it” but Trump fired State Department experts and Tulsi Gabbard hollowed out the ranks of intelligence professionals who understood how to build the relationships necessary for successful diplomacy. Trump cozied up to a dictator who, repeatedly, has demonstrated that his goal is to consolidate power across eastern Europe and farther. Putin has made no secret of his desire to re-establish the old Soviet system and its Cold War dominion, and it looks like he has drafted Donald Trump, who likes to pick fights with our allies, to help achieve his goal.
While we do not know the intimate details of the conversation between the two world leaders, one thing seems to be clear: Vladimir Putin is not one to roll over to appease Donald Trump’s whims. That must be frustrating to a president used to getting his way with Congress, the Department of Justice, the Supreme Court, and other world leaders. In an extraordinary demonstration of unity, leaders from England, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the European Commission and NATO decided to accompany Ukrainian president Zelenskyy on his trip to Washington to discuss ending Putin’s years-long invasion of Ukraine. They recognize, even if Trump doesn’t, that all of Europe’s future may be on the line, not just Ukraine.
Trump desperately covets a Nobel Peace Prize and hopes that ending the war in Ukraine will be his ticket to Oslo. The small gold medal might get lost in the newly-gilded Oval Office, but it also comes with a million dollars in prize money. Is it a peace legacy he seeks, or a hefty financial prize? In the meantime, tens of thousands of people in Gaza are starving, his budget cuts will curtail health care and food assistance to millions of Americans, he threatens to send the National Guard to other cities governed by black mayors, and the Epstein scandal continues to seethe. “Trump’s Recklessness” slides quickly to “Wreck”lessness.