Trump show has real-world consequences

Some weeks it’s more noticeable than others that United States President Donald Trump views his term as The Greatest Show on Earth. Sometimes his showmanship works — to a degree — as at the DMZ between the two Koreas, where he became the first sitting US president to cross into the North.

As a gesture, it was stunning and simple. Who would have thought a few years ago it would happen? But it felt empty, unearned, like a dramatic climax that didn’t have enough satisfying build-up. Unlike the Iran nuclear deal, there was no multipower comprehensive agreement to back it up.

Trump was just there to harvest the images for news consumption and followed the choreography of the North-South border summit last year.

Still, the mere act itself made good on the future promise of the US-North talks.

They have achieved little substance. North Korea is no closer to denuclearisation. And it’s hard to see why it would. Essentially the Trump Administration has accepted the dangerous reality that North Korea is in the nuclear club.

In that case it is better to talk to Kim Jong Un regularly than to leave the Hermit Kingdom in isolation. Kim has already been normalised — we are past the point of wondering whether he should be or not. Summits are part of the containment.

The North Korean has had summits with the most powerful leaders on earth — Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He’s now just another dictator on the diplomatic circuit.

But a future US president could make advances, now the ice has been broken, with North Korea, just as he or she could repair the mess with Iran.

The week ended with Trump’s less successful show in Washington. He used the US military as props, with tanks stationed by the Lincoln Memorial and a flypast, for what seemed a lot like a re-election campaign event on America’s traditionally nonpartisan independence day, July 4.

Approved VIPs and Republican donors received tickets to an area fenced off from the general public. MAGA hats were common in the crowd. Fireworks were donated but the overall estimated cost was borne by the taxpayer. The National Park Service had to divert nearly US$2.5 million in funding to the “Salute to America” event.

But the weather literally rained on Trump’s parade, dribbling down the security glass he stood behind, smudging those transmitted images.

Trump focused on military history in his speech but referred to the Continental Army taking “over the airports” during the American Revolutionary War in the 1770s, when there was no air travel. He later blamed a teleprompter error.

Trump is easy to dismiss as a meme-magnet with authoritarian affectations. But there are real-world consequences for his actions in cases such immigrants at the border being kept in cages. As with a lot of what he does, his lack of seriousness makes it hard to take him seriously enough.

Sometimes his show doesn’t go to script.