A view from abroad
Roland Nelles at Spiegel Online is not a huge fan of Furious Don.
The debacle at the G-7 clearly shows that the real problem with Donald Trump’s policies is Donald Trump himself. There is no rhyme or reason to his actions aside from the desire — the need — to be the best, the most important, the biggest. The collapse of the West and the destruction of alliances that have held up for decades are merely the side effects of this unprecedented ego trip.
At the G-7 summit, Trump treated America’s oldest friends as though they were enemies. At the same time, he fawns over Russian President Vladimir Putin and calls dictators such as North Korea’s Kim Jong Un “very honorable.” He sees the reflection of himself in such men. He does what he wants. Agreements with partners, the rules of the international order: None of that holds water with Trump.
Trump wants complete control and can’t stand being contradicted. He always has to have the first word and the last. Indeed, it was far from surprising that he sought to impose his own agenda (the trade conflict and Russia) on the summit. The tweet he sent from his plane out of Canada, in which he revoked his support for the summit statement, was merely a logical result of his egomania. It’s always just me, me, me.
He’s like an enormous enraged baby.
And of course he thinks he can impose his own agenda on the summit, because he seems to think being the king of the US is the same as being king of the world and everyone has to bow down and obey. His peers in Congress…his peers on the courts…and his peers on the international scene. (I use peers only to indicate equivalence of status and power, since clearly Trump cannot drum up enough knowledge and skill to be the peer of any, except for some of the worst of Congress).