As anyone watching US politics knows, Trump is now off to his first overseas trip - to Saudi Arabia, Israel and Italy. Interesting choice - rather than a “dry run” of an easy trip visiting Mexico or Canada, Trump’s team has chosen a rather more challenging task of visiting three religious centers.
I’m sure there will be much written about the trip - depending on the source (highly divided these days), the trip will be either an unmitigated disaster, or a fabulous success.
Before anything actually happens, what do people here think will make this trip of Trump’s a success? In another thread, I said that the bar for success is very, very low - in fact I said that if Trump does not actually start a war, or soil himself in public, it will be considered a resounding success.
What do others think? What will constitute a “success” for this trip? Just getting through it without a major gaffe? Some praise from all three countries? Looking diplomatic?
For Trump, I would say no major gaffes. A bonus would be to appear diplomatic. He could really use a boost to his image outside of his die hard supporters.
I’m afraid he’ll give away the store. Success would be nothing comes of this. He’s not gambling with his own money any more.
To be honest, has he ever been gambling with his own money? At any time, ever in his life?
Give away the store? Is he planning on conducting negotiations on this trip? What might he “give away” and to whom?
Well we’ll find out. We are learning new things every day. But confidential intelligence is now in the mix as well as everything else.
You know that donald can’t negotiate anything. He will likely be flattered (or implicitly threatened) by people who are looking for things from him and will not have any impulse control over his responses.
While I’m sure Trump’s advisors do not want him to conduct negotiations on this trip, at this point, I really don’t KNOW what he might do.
He might promise Arab leaders and Israeli leaders completely opposite things about the West Bank, for example. And his advisor’s heads will promptly explode.
Or, he might follow protocol exactly, and this will be a relatively mundane trip. Who can tell? What are your predictions for success? What will make this trip “a success”? Essentially Nothing happens? Will that be “a success”?
He has had a lot to lose most of the time, but you’re right in that he’s adept dragging others into his game and letting them take the brunt of the losses. That just worries me even more.
I’m more interested in how many Russians will be at his big party in Saudi Arabia.
Have you been paying attention to anything for the past few months? Our president may be the worst presenter of our interests in the history of the country. And as for the art of the deal, he is a patsy when faced with other people with power.
Does Saudi Arabia have pee hookers?
The world understands he’s a clown; he’ll sign the Saudi contract, ‘American jobs’, yada, yada, Israel a great fried, yaya, yada. Best we an all hope for is some entertainment, he sure as hell isn’t going to change anything.
For Trump a success will be not embarrassing himself or insulting any of our allies.
At this point Trump doing anything that would be taken for granted in a normal president is seen as a huge win. The two big spikes in his approval ratings were after he gave state of the union speech and after he nomination of Gorsuch. Both of which were were pretty pro-forma accomplishments.
Of particular interest will be how he threads the needle in Saudi Arabia. He will have to choose between sucking up to his mostly Muslim audience on site, and sucking up to his mostly Islamaphobic base back home.