Dodging friends, foes and criticism, Trump navigates G-20

BUENOS AIRES: He didn’t sit down with two of his favourite strongmen.

He downgraded a meeting with one ally and postponed one with another.

He exchanged icy smiles with the prime minister of Canada, who had threatened to skip the signing of a new trade agreement with the US and Mexico because of lingering bitterness over steel tariffs.

And he was preoccupied by swirling legal clouds back home, tweeting angrily that there was nothing illicit about his business ventures in Russia, a day after his former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the extent and duration of those dealings.

For US President Donald Trump, his first day at the summit of the Group of 20 industrialised nations in Buenos Aires was a window into his idiosyncratic statecraft after nearly two years in office.

His America First foreign policy has not become America Alone yet, but it has left him with a strange patchwork of partners at the global gathering in Argentina.

Trump cancelled a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing the country’s recent naval clash with Ukraine. Nor did he meet with Saudi Crown Prince Moham- med bin Salman, though he did exchange pleasantries with the prince, whom he has pulled close despite serious charges that the prince had a role in the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The US president did meet with leaders of two Pacific allies, Australia and Japan, as well as with the Indian prime minister. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, one of Trump’s most eager courtiers among foreign leaders, congratulated him on his “historic victory in the midterm election” - an election in which Democrats seized control of the House.

Still, in purely social terms, Trump’s day may well have peaked at 7.30am when he greeted Argentine President Mauricio Macri at the Casa Rosada. The pink presidential palace is famous for the balcony from which Eva Perón once spoke to adoring crowds in the plaza below.

“We’ve known each other a long time,” said Trump, who was involved in a Manhattan real estate deal with Macri’s father in the 1980s. “That was in my civilian days,” said a nostalgic US president, who has talked recently about how much he misses his hometown.

The G-20 is a motley congregation under any circumstances, divided between liberal democratic leaders, who are greater in number, and autocrats, who often drive the agenda.