(Cartoon image is by Marian Kamensky at cagle.com.)The tiny black hearts of Trump supporters across the nation are broken today. They had a vision that their orange demagogue would ride into Singapore on a white horse and convince Kim Jong-Un, through force of personality and great negotiating skills, to give up all his nuclear weapons. Then Trump would fly to Scandinavia to receive his Nobel Prize -- assuring a Republican landslide in November and Trump's re-election in 2020. It was a sure thing.
Only it wasn't. Trump finally realized that he was being played (out-negotiated) by Kim Jong-Un, and cancelled the Singapore summit. His excuse was the "tremendous anger and open hostility" of a recent statement by North Korea. What was their statement? They called Pence a "political dummy". And they were right! Pence had warned that North Korea could go the way of Libya (be forced to give up a nuclear weapons program and have their leader deposed and killed). It was an incredibly stupid remark for Pence.
The cancellation of the meeting comes as no surprise to most of us. Any person with half a brain knew North Korea was not going to give up their nuclear weapons. Did they say they were willing to discuss denuclearization? Yes. But they NEVER said they would be willing to unilaterally give up their nuclear weapons. Only Trump, and his ignorant base, were dumb enough to believe that might happen.
Donald Trump failed to get anything out of the North Korea situation. The only winner was North Korea. They wanted to be viewed (at least in North Korea) as being important enough to have a one-on-one meeting with the most powerful leader in the world -- the United States president. They got that. Trump got nothing but an embarrassing failure.
This shouldn't surprise anyone. During the campaign, Trump said he was a "great negotiator" -- the best negotiator -- and that he would personally negotiate great deals for the American people -- so many that they would be tired of winning all the time. The truth is that he has had nothing but a string of failures.
Trump promised to negotiate a better deal for the United States in the TPP after dropping out of it. But no better deal has happened. The other nations just completed the deal without the U.S., and China is left as the dominant economic power of the Pacific Rim.
Trump promised to negotiate a better deal with Canada and Mexico on NAFTA. That has not happened. Negotiations have failed because Canada and Mexico have the strange notion that it should be fair to all three nations (and not just the U.S.).
Trump promised to repeal Obamacare and negotiate a replacement that would cover all Americans with cheaper insurance prices. That did not happen. He just damaged Obamacare -- leaving millions more Americans without insurance and higher insurance premiums for everyone else.
Trump dropped out of the Paris Accords, saying he would negotiate a better deal for the United States. No better deal has been negotiated, and since the U.S. produces more greenhouse gases than almost any other nation, the fight against global climate change has been seriously hurt.
Trump said he would build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and negotiate a way for Mexico to pay for that wall. There is no wall, and Mexico has been adamant that they will not pay a penny for any wall.
Trump dropped out of the Iran Agreement, and imposed new sanctions on Iran that he said would make them negotiate a better deal. That won't happen. All he did was set up a coming economic fight with our European allies (who stayed in the agreement).
Trump bragged that he saved 200 American jobs by negotiating with Carrier. Carrier got about$7 million in tax breaks, then shipped those jobs out of the country a few months later anyway. It was another negotiating failure for Trump.
Trump threatened tariffs against China to negotiate a better trade deal. China won that battle by showing they can hurt the U.S. economy as much (and probably more) than Trump could hurt their economy.
After bragging about his great negotiating skills, Trump has scored a string of failures -- and no successes. He is probably the worst negotiator to ever occupy the White House.
