Die Welt nimmt Trump nicht mehr ernst

Tom Nichols: “Wednesday’s military parade in Beijing is the most recent evidence that the world’s authoritarians consider [Donald] Trump a lightweight. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and North Korea’s maximum nepo baby, Kim Jong Un, gathered to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. (Putin’s Belarusian satrap, Alexander Lukashenko, was also on hand.) The American president was not invited: After all, what role did the United States play in defeating Japan and liberating Eurasia? Instead, Trump, much like America itself, was left to watch from the sidelines.

“But the parade was worse than a mere snub. Putin, Xi, and Kim stood in solidarity while reviewing China’s military might only weeks after Putin came to Alaska and refused Trump’s pleas to end Russia’s war against Ukraine. The White House tried to spin that ill-advised summit into at least a draw between Putin and Trump, but when the Kremlin’s dictator shows up with no interest in negotiation, speaks first at a press conference, and then caps the day by declining a carefully planned lunch and flying home, that’s a humiliation, not an exchange of views.

“… The reality is that Russia, China, and North Korea are conspiring against America, but it is beneath both the dignity and the power of an American president to whine about it … A more self-assured commander in chief would have ignored the parade and, if asked about it, would have said something to the effect that the United States has always respected the sacrifices of our allies in World War II. But not Trump: He petulantly declared that he would not have attended even if the cool kids had invited him.

“… America is adrift. It has no coherent foreign policy, no team of senior professionals managing its national defense and diplomacy, and a president who has little interest in the world beyond what it can offer him. Little wonder that the men who gathered in Beijing—three autocrats whose nations are collectively pointing many hundreds of nuclear weapons at the United States—feel free to act as if they don’t even think twice about Trump or the country he leads.”

Read more: [https://theatln.tc/uYN6DlTX](https://theatln.tc/uYN6DlTX)

Of course no one takes him seriously. He’s a child playing in a game people train decades to take part in.

Moreover, he is arbitrary, malicious and selfish. No one can expect to make any sort of arrangement with him and expect that the US will live up to its word.

It takes generations of hard-work to build and maintain a national grand strategy. It only takes one fool (and his spineless enablers) to undo the work of millions over a century.

One visionary can summon the future. One madman can also destroy an empire that took centuries to build and maintain: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phocas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phocas)

I can just hear them talking and Kim Jon saying “He’s such an idiot” and the other two in unison saying “Yes, but he’s our idiot”.