Trump-Putin Meeting: What Could Go Wrong?

Credit: Mikhail Klimentyev AFP/Getty Images

We believe that diplomacy should always be the chief tool used in working towards global peace. However, the actions of this president and his administration do not give us much faith in his diplomatic abilities. Trump should bow out of this meeting if he is not capable of protecting American interests.

President Trump should cancel his meeting with Putin July 16. In fact, he should never have taken the meeting to begin with. We have no idea what Trump hopes to gain from this meeting. But we have every reason to believe that it’s not in America’s best interest. Donald Trump looks out for one person and one person only: himself.

Also, it’s unclear if Trump learned that winging it during a meeting with a foreign adversary is NOT advisable. Considering how skillfully Trump was finessed by North Korea at the Singapore summit, we are skeptical that the president will find himself once again at a tactical disadvantage when meeting with Putin.

Reminder: Trump prematurely called his meeting with Kim Jong Un a success and naively declared that North Korea is “no longer a nuclear threat” and the problem “solved.”

Yet, the DPRK is describing its most recent conversations with Secretary Pompeo as “deeply regrettable.”

The news that came out of Brussels this week doesn’t exactly paint a picture of a completely unified NATO alliance. Thanks to his poor performance at the NATO summit, Trump and his team head into the Putin meeting with little to no leverage.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen through Trump’s words and actions that he would much rather court dictators than protect our decades-long alliance with NATO.