History is unfolding in Singapore right now. Whether or not it will be good history is something that still remains to be seen.
President Trump has refused to study up on the details in advance of his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and didn’t exactly inspire boundless confidence during the botched G7 meeting this past weekend where he succeeded only in alienating longtime allies of the United States.
The Singapore summit is already a major PR coup for the North Koreans, as they have long wanted such a face-to-face meeting. Now, Kim — the leader of a rogue nuclear state which is unable or unwilling to feed many of its citizens — will be able to present himself as a world leader with the same status as President of the United States.
Rather than assuage these perfectly reasonable concerns, President Trump has taken to Twitter to mock his critics. He accused the “haters and losers” of labeling the summit a “major loss for the U.S.” which is simply not an accurate depiction of the commentary around the meeting.
Most critics have simply pointed out that the meeting carries diplomatic risks and pointed to the president’s gleeful ignorance, infamously petty temperament, and diplomatic naivete as causes for skepticism.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Trump tweet without at least one typo. He misspelled “stopped” as “stoped” in reference to North Korean missile research and testing. He also misspelled “missile” as “missle.” One hopes he can muster more attention to detail when it comes to forging any possible deal with Kim.
The tepid sign off of “We will be fine!” might be easier to believe if Trump had ever even once demonstrated some kind of political acumen beyond inciting domestic divisions. His foreign policy has been chaotic at best and actively destructive often. There is a chance something good might come from this summit, but it’s a very tenuous bet at this point.
The fact that I am having a meeting is a major loss for the U.S., say the haters & losers. We have our hostages, testing, research and all missle launches have stoped, and these pundits, who have called me wrong from the beginning, have nothing else they can say! We will be fine!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 11, 2018
