HELSINKI FORGETS THE BARRICADES AMID HOPES THAT TRUMP AND PUTIN CAN ALSO LOWER THEIR BARRIERS
Finland’s pretty seaside capital has little need for barricades, it seems. Around the “ring of steel” thrown up for the summit between presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, organisers had commandeered lorries and even fire engines to block the cobbled roads.
But even this effort was half-hearted, with policemen loitering in the cordon’s wide gaps.
Since the meeting was announced, the Finnish government has dusted off old guidebooks to pull together a low-key but efficient hospitality programme.
At a lakeside conference centre, officials broadcast the World Cup on a big screen on Sunday night.
Because the local TV channel commentary would not be understood by the guests, a bit of improvisation was necessary. The sound was turned down and BBC radio commentary pumped through the speakers.
Despite the summer tradition of Helsinki’s residents heading for countryside villas for the duration, thousands lined the route to see the US and Russian presidents arrive yesterday.
The assembled crowd was much better humoured than the angry mobs that protested against Mr Trump in London and across Britain a few days earlier. Many Finns ate ice creams and chatted.
“People in Finland are not used to this kind of event, so it’s making them curious,” resident Elfadii Mustapha said. “We see our president and his wife in the markets. With these two men, Putin and Trump, who knows what they will decide? We couldn’t miss it.”
A small group of anti-Trump protesters wearing masks of the president banged drums and shouted slogans to resist the US leader. Otherwise there was little of the insulting symbolism to match the inflatable Trump baby that hovered over London’s Parliament Square.
The US president had his supporters, including a group of gym-ready men in neatly ironed black shirts who carried banners that read: “God Bless, President Trump.”
The summit theatrics were easy to read as two macho leaders sizing each other up.
Mr Putin arrived on his plane an hour late. The Russians had brought the new, domestically built presidential limousine to balance the inevitable fascination with “The Beast”, the Cadillac used by US presidents.
Mr Trump refused to leave his lodge until the Russian leader was confirmed to be in the harbourside Finnish presidential palace.
Once inside, the two men sat warily, giving welcome statements but little else away. Body language experts concluded the pair resembled prize-fighters seeking to assert superiority.
Back on the streets, another protester had an alternative view on her T-shirt: a double-headed eagle with Mr Trump and Mr Putin on either side.
The US president had his supporters, including a group of gym-ready men in black shirts carrying banners that read ‘God Bless, President Trump’
ITrump’s UK tour sparked a tidal wave of anger, which is in danger of breeding a generation of America haters
n the unlikeliest of places, the Amazon jungle, I once met two intrepid young British tourists. I was filming television reports on the burning of the rainforest. They were eco-tourists exploring an extraordinary and exotic part of the world. I happened to mention that I had also been filming in another remarkable natural setting – the deserts of the western United States. I suggested they might like to visit the US.
“Oh, we couldn’t go there,” one of the British adventurers said. “We hate the United States.”
“And Americans,” the other chipped in.
I remember being stunned by this bizarre conversation because it was so unusual. All over the world I have met people who dislike some American government policies but most still broadly admire, as I do, the American people, their successes and much of their culture.
Could you imagine a world without Apple, Google, Boeing, rock and roll, Ford, Hollywood, jazz, blues, hip-hop and hamburgers? Or without Madonna, Mark Twain, Sylvia Plath, Mark Spitz, Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King?
In Britain, where there have often been demonstrations against the actions of the US government, whether in Vietnam, the Middle East or elsewhere, the British have always distinguished between what American governments may do and the warmth and hospitality of the American people.
My first encounter with Americans, when I was aged about 10, was with the sons of US Air Force personnel stationed near where I grew up in Scotland.
The American military was part of Nato forces dedicated – or so I grew up to believe – to helping keep me safe. But there was something even more important to me aged 10 — American sandwiches. When I visited the homes of American friends, instead of a thin Scottish sandwich, the American mothers would add meat, cheese, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato and pickles. America, I decided, must be a very fine place indeed, if they made such thick and juicy sandwiches.
In the past few days the US president’s visit to Britain led to enormous and unprecedented anti-Trump – but not anti-American – demonstrations. The real motivation goes far beyond his policies to a profound dislike of Donald Trump personally.
To the British demonstrators, he is every American stereotype – a brash, ill-mannered, arrogant, sexist, overweight, uncultured and untalented bully – a President Gump but without Forrest Gump’s charm.
While in Britain, he intervened clumsily in our most toxic and divisive political issue, Brexit. He undermined Prime Minister Theresa May and then about-turned and heaped lavish praise on her.
And, characteristically, he told some obvious lies, claiming he predicted the result of the Brexit vote in 2016 when visiting his golf course in Scotland, even though that visit took place after the Brexit result.
It would be sad if the anti-Trump sentiment creates another generation of the kind of America-haters I met in the Amazon.
The British generally love to hear American leaders speak of “the special relationship” with the United States.
But as one presidential adviser put it to me, that phrase is used to “tickle the Brits’ belly”. Yet Mr Trump has not tickled the belly. He has punched it. He claimed Britain is the “highest level of special”, whatever that might mean, then concluded his visit by acting oafishly in front of Britain’s 92-year-old head of state, Queen Elizabeth II. Such conduct smacks less of special and more of offensive.
British ambassadors in the US frequently lecture journalists not to talk about “the special relationship”.
One told me we should see it merely as one relationship among others. As a superpower, the US has a “special relationship” with Japan, South Korea, Ireland, France, Germany, Mexico, Israel, Canada, Saudi Arabia and a number of other countries and this week the British special relationship became much less special.
Mr Trump upset the defence relationship through his attitude to Nato, undermined the shared free trade economic relationship in the G7 and has been publicly critical of shared allied intelligence systems which blame Russia for (among other things) interfering in the US elections and using nerve gas to kill on British soil.
A few months ago I argued that the British government should not invite Mr Trump to our country. But I accept his visit has had one remarkably positive effect.
The United Kingdom is a divided nation, even on football and the World Cup. Some Scots and some in Northern Ireland will never support any England team. But Mr Trump’s visit broadly united the UK in relief when he had gone.
In the Second World War, the British used to joke that American soldiers were “overpaid, oversexed and over here”, while recognising that America was and remains our indispensable ally.
But the Trump visit has been like sitting next to an embarrassing uncle at a family wedding. To keep the family happy, you smile and act politely but you cannot wait for him to leave and go home.