This might seem a bit tough to believe, but I truly am hoping for the best outcome from the planned meeting featuring Donald John Trump and Kim Jong Un.
Am I expecting such a result? Do I have any faith that the president of the United States can actually achieve anything of substance in this first-ever meeting with the North Korean dictator?
I’m likely to start laughing any minute now.
Trump says he relishes the notion of keeping the world on its toes. He wants to remain unpredictable. He doesn’t want to telegraph his punches.
This meeting was announced on a spur of the moment impulse from Trump, who reportedly accepted an invitation from Kim. He didn’t consult with anyone prior to announcing it, or so I’ve been led to understand.
Thus, the unpredictability factor has kicked into high gear.
Summits of this type — you know, the history-making events — usually come after a lot of groundwork has been laid by career diplomats and senior advisers. Trump prefers to fly solo on these matters, even when they involve a first-in-history meeting between a U.S. president and a North Korean tyrant.
How does one predict an outcome from such a meeting? How does one pretend to know what can come from it?
The White House keeps saying that Trump made no concessions to Kim, and that the president is going to lay down some preconditions before he sits down with the North Korean dictator. I keep circling back to this question: Does a U.S. president without a lick of experience at anything resembling international diplomacy know precisely what to demand of his adversary?
Trump’s reliance on his own instincts — to be candid — frightens me in the extreme. He hasn’t yet mastered the intricacies of governing here at home. He has developed at best a spotty record of accomplishment in his first year in the only public office he ever sought, let alone occupied.
So, now he’s planning to meet with a blustering, bellicose blowhard who, the more I think of it, sounds just like the president himself.
What in the world can we expect from this meeting? Not a damn thing! I am preparing to be surprised.