G20: When Trump met Putin
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that two world leaders whose alleged involvement has pretty much defined the global headlines of the last eight months, must be in search of each other. We mean, they must be curious about the eventual “personal chemistry”, the index of all things 21st century, especially geopolitics.
It so happens that the president of the United States, Donald J Trump, and his Russian counterpart, and also alleged ring-master, er, or so they say, Vladimir Putin, finally met each other for the very first time at the G-20 summit which began in Hamburg, Germany today, June 7.
It's official: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin met at the G20 summit. Watch the event live here: https://t.co/gYrGULM9El pic.twitter.com/CL6f7G7dSp
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) July 7, 2017
Face to face for the first time, Donald Trump meets Vladimir Putin https://t.co/vUnbyT66v6 #G20HH2017 pic.twitter.com/Y5c7Y15tSv
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) July 7, 2017
Rocked by anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation protests, the high-voltage environment of the tranquil, high-on-culture German city known for great universities and the Max Planck Institute campus, became the antithetical site for the meeting that seemed destined.
The business tycoon and the former spy have had most complicated mutual entanglements, with allegations flying thick and fast over Moscow’s interference in the November 2016 presidential elections in the United States that saw Trump emerge victorious.
VIDEO: #Putin & #Trump shake hands behind the scenes of #G20 summit in Hamburg https://t.co/NwdMvKcdwq pic.twitter.com/sDKVi6wW8p
— RT (@RT_com) July 7, 2017
Now that they have finally met and had a firm handshake, international diplomacy enters a brand new chapter amid rising uncertainties and global insecurities. In fact, what we see is Trump and Putin flaying the world’s nerves with their unpredictable mood swings, and US and the Russian establishment playing diplomatic ping-pong with each other that would put India and China to shame.
So, what are the biggest irritants and bones of contention which could be touched upon in the Putin-Trump bilateral meet scheduled later?
US-Russia political standoff
Even though Trump and Putin have been more than cordial with each other, a far cry from Putin-Obama cold war, establishments, particularly the traditional Big Media in the respective countries, have been at war with each other over the November 2016 election meddling issue.
Not only that, the media in the US is bitterly divided between pro-Trump/pro-Putin and anti-Trump/Putin lobbies, with the latter camp having the biggies Trump routinely decries as “fake news” – CNN, The New York Times and Washington Post.
However low the expectations are from the US media that Trump would make America look responsible in his meeting with Putin, there’s the underlying fear that it would be all a cakewalk for the Russian president. In fact, Adam Schiff, a Democrat on the House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee, has told a news outlet in America: "There's nothing... the Kremlin would like to see more than a (US) president who will settle for a grip and a grin and walk away saying that he had this fabulous meeting with the Kremlin autocrat."
Many fear that the Republican president in Trump is hardly a match for the international diplomacy veteran in Putin, and more so he’s thoroughly under-prepared to deal with a leonine character like the Russian president. However, with Trump’s “big Russia reset”, we can expect major changes in the world order, perhaps no longer driven by the ghost of the cold war.
Political differences, sanctions over Crimea, Syria
The Crimean referendum in favour of Russia against Ukraine, and the siding of different factions in the six-year-long protracted conflict in Syria, one of the bloodiest in recent times, have propelled US-Russian relationship to rock bottom, despite the presidential bonhomie. Crimea had resulted in US imposing trade sanctions on Russia, which were raked up by Putin before he arrived in Hamburg.
Of course, “regime change” in Syria is what the US wants, and Russia, led by Putin, is the biggest bulwark against Bashar al-Assad losing his elected presidency, and Damascus falling to rebels armed by US, Saudi Arabia and even Israel.
In April this year, before he went to visit Saudi Arabia and Israel and signed that whopping 110 billion dollar arms deal with the Arabian monarchy responsible for funding worst forms of global jihad, including perhaps ISIS, Trump had launched a missile attack – 59 Tomahawks – at Syria’s al Shayrat air base.
This was apparently about punishing Assad for an alleged chemical gas attack on April 6, and Trump being moved to protect Syria’s “beautiful babies”, even though he has put Syria in the list of six countries banned from sending its citizens to the US for 90 days.
Bilateral meeting
The top-level bilateral meeting between Trump and Putin will, however, be attended only by US secretary of state Rex Tillerson, and the Russian counterpart in Sergey Lavrov.
Despite contradictions and acrimonious standoffs, closed-door meeting with translators would mean some major scramble for the West Asian/Middle Eastern resources. The outcome would be a Russian roulette of negotiations, with the US represented by Rex Tillerson of ExxonMobil fame and the face of fossil fuel industry’s last hurrah, stepping in for Trump’s lack of finesse.
What would this mean for climate dialogues, a big part of the G-20 summit? Perhaps, very little, and if all, squarely in the negative, given Trump had pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement earlier this year blaming India and China, but actually saving his fossil fuel industry backers.
Will G-20 impose any sanctions on the US for walking out of Paris Climate Agreement and committing to a future of disaster-induced, carbon-printed worldwide mayhem? Hardly.
Trump-Putin versus European Union
Despite the civil handshakes, the meetings with the G-20 chief, German chancellor and perhaps the rightful leader of the free world, Angela Merkel, have been cold – for both Trump and Putin. Newly elected French president Emmanuel Macron does no more than the minimum civil courtesy to Trump, and deftly manages Putin, while showering all his attention on Merkel.
Justin Trudeau of Canada tries playing to Trump’s ego while courting EU massively and Shinzo Abe of Japan performs the most egregious displays of feigned fondness for Trump while bolstering trade with the European Union.
Evidently, the bonhomie of the two patriarchs – one a 3am tweeter and the other a global czar par excellence interested in “restoring Russia” to its Soviet Union/imperial glory – is something that’s a sore thumb in the weak fist of the shaky collective that is the G-20.