Insight
Trump’s two summits: Can NATO navigate the dangers? by Ian Bond 4 July 2018
Donald Trump attacked his allies at the G7 summit, then embraced North Korea’s Kim. Will summits with NATO and Vladimir Putin follow the same pattern? NATO leaders are worried about what US President Donald Trump may say at the NATO summit in Brussels this month, and what he might agree to in his first proper summit meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin a few days later (the two have so far only held a short bilateral meeting, in the margins of the G20 Hamburg summit in July 2017). A bad tempered NATO summit followed by an ill-considered rapprochement with Russia would further divide the West. Trump’s behaviour around the G7 summit in Canada on June 8th and 9th has already damaged relations with the US’s closest partners. On May 31st he imposed tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from Canada and the EU on the grounds of national security. On the eve of the summit, Trump called for Russia to be re-admitted to the G7. It was expelled from the then G8 after it annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014. After reportedly insulting behaviour aimed at German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump left the meeting early. He then withdrew his agreement to the summit declaration while en route to his Singapore summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, threatened more trade measures against his partners and described his G7 host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as “weak and dishonest”. By contrast, after the Singapore meeting, Trump described Kim as “talented”, and “very smart, very good negotiator, wants to do the right thing” and told Fox News that he and Kim had “good chemistry”. Going into talks, the US position was that North Korea must agree to “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation”, but the statement issued by Trump and Kim contained no mention of verification or irreversible steps. Essentially, Trump accepted the same expressions of good intent from Kim that he had derided previous US presidents for accepting. In return, without consulting either the Pentagon or his South Korean allies, he announced that the US would cancel military exercises with South Korea. Trump complained that they were “tremendously expensive”, “provocative” and “inappropriate”. CER INSIGHT: TRUMP’S TWO SUMMITS: CAN NATO NAVIGATE THE DANGERS? 4 July 2018
info@cer.EU | WWW.CER.EU
1