Hey Donald Trump, what was all that back there?
Last night Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he had returned home from his trip to Asia, and that he had made “Big progress on MANY fronts.” Meanwhile, back in the real world, anyone paying even an ounce of attention could see that he made zero progress on any front during his trip. In fact, he wasn’t even attempting to make progress. So what was he doing?
Donald Trump’s trip to Japan consisted of meeting the new Emperor, playing golf with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, attending a sumo wrestling match, and tweeting a lot of idiotic nonsense about Kim Jong-Un and Joe Biden. What was the point? Why did Trump fly all the way to the other side of the world just to carry out a minimal schedule that didn’t involve anything of substance? We all know how much Trump hates diplomatic trips. And long flights. And doing the job in general.
In the past we’ve seen Trump take whirlwind international trips to the Eastern Hemisphere that were obviously put together for the sole purpose of meeting with Vladimir Putin during one of his stops, so Putin could give Trump instructions on what he wants him to do next. But that didn’t happen this time around. We’ve also seen Trump take trips to places like Saudi Arabia that were for the obvious purpose of working out corrupt deals with corrupt foreign leaders that put money in his pocket. Unless we’ve missed something, that didn’t happen in Japan either. So what gives?
We can’t figure this one out. It’s difficult to imagine that Donald Trump decided to travel to Japan just to play footsie with a government he doesn’t appear to personally owe money to, or have any corrupt deals in place with. And while he did make the trip all about North Korea by tweeting that he agreed with Kim Jong-Un’s personal attacks on Joe Biden, this trip wasn’t really about North Korea. It was about Shinzo Abe, a non-corrupt leader whose only value to Trump is that he consistently kisses Trump’s butt. Has Trump become so sullen, he really did fly to Japan just to be in the company of one of the few world leaders who pretends to like him? This all keeps getting stranger.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report