President Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and joint press conference have left many of his supporters scratching their heads.
In the most seminal moment of today's press conference-the main element of this meeting in which the president could publicly show his strength and grace toward a "Competitor"-the president used the opportunity to focus almost exclusively on his struggles with critics at home and let Putin appear to be the one with the most leverage.
None of this is to say that Trump needed to go into this meeting and verbally attack and abuse Putin.
Finally, President Trump could have moved on to say that "Great powers have sharp disagreements all the time, but that should not prevent us from having relations that allow us to work on common interests." In sum, speaking publicly and with diplomatic aplomb, Trump could have directly accused Putin in private but in public he could have generalized and warned any actor of what the U.S. response will be to future meddling.
He can treat Putin as a real partner in our common interests when Putin understands how he can have a good relationship with us, as a more normal nation.
President Trump missed the chance to show Putin as well as the world that a Trump relationship with Russia will be different than Obama's.
He has nothing left now but to continue his strong actions against Putin's aggressions and non-cooperation, so that a few weeks or months from now observers can say that the president might have let Putin come off unscathed in the press conference but at least his actions remain tough, so Putin will have to come around at some point.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/16/trumps-meeting-putin-major-missed-opportunity-american-interests/
In the most seminal moment of today's press conference-the main element of this meeting in which the president could publicly show his strength and grace toward a "Competitor"-the president used the opportunity to focus almost exclusively on his struggles with critics at home and let Putin appear to be the one with the most leverage.
None of this is to say that Trump needed to go into this meeting and verbally attack and abuse Putin.
Finally, President Trump could have moved on to say that "Great powers have sharp disagreements all the time, but that should not prevent us from having relations that allow us to work on common interests." In sum, speaking publicly and with diplomatic aplomb, Trump could have directly accused Putin in private but in public he could have generalized and warned any actor of what the U.S. response will be to future meddling.
He can treat Putin as a real partner in our common interests when Putin understands how he can have a good relationship with us, as a more normal nation.
President Trump missed the chance to show Putin as well as the world that a Trump relationship with Russia will be different than Obama's.
He has nothing left now but to continue his strong actions against Putin's aggressions and non-cooperation, so that a few weeks or months from now observers can say that the president might have let Putin come off unscathed in the press conference but at least his actions remain tough, so Putin will have to come around at some point.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/16/trumps-meeting-putin-major-missed-opportunity-american-interests/
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