President navigates G-20 as increasingly isolated leader
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — He didn’t sit down with two of his favorite 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 United States and Mexico because of lingering bitterness over steel tariffs.
And President Donald Trump was preoccupied by 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 Trump, his first day at the summit of the Group of 20 industrialized 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” exactly, but it has left him with a strange patchwork of partners at these global gatherings.
Trump canceled a meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, citing the country’s recent naval clash with Ukraine. Nor did he meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, though he did exchange pleasantries with the prince, whom he has pulled close despite charges the prince had a role in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The president did meet with leaders of two Pacific allies, Australia and Japan, as well as with the prime minister of India. 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 7:30 a.m. when he greeted Argentina’s president, Mauricio Macri, at the Casa Rosada.“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 president, who has talked recently about how much he misses his hometown.
The Group of 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. Trump, who was making his second visit to the G-20, dramatizes its split nature, having alienated European allies and cultivated friendly ties with several of the strongmen.
This year, however, the autocrats proved as problematic as the allies. Despite professing his loyalty to Crown Prince Mohammed only two weeks ago, Trump did not find time for a formal session with him. The president’s national security adviser, John Bolton, chalked up the omission to Trump’s “full to overflowing” schedule of meetings.