How to understand Trump's Zig-Zag diplomacy

WASHINGTON – Looking at President Trump's diplomatic maneuvers – in Singapore last month and on the eve of his next meetings in Brussels and Helsinki – I wonder if badysts have made a mistake in explaining his negotiating style. Brash young personality described in his 1987 memoir, "The art of the case."

The Trump we are looking at is a much more needy person than the young mogul who jumped to the top of the world. The current version of Trump sees himself as the CEO not a flourishing business, but one that has been almost crushed by his predecessors. Rather than warmly embrace long-time partners in Europe, he regrets them and their success. He chooses unnecessary fights and tries to humiliate the people he feels have flouted.

Trump, this thorny and tattooed, is looking for new friends and investors. It's almost like he was ready to bed what he sees as a losing hand and drawing a new card game – the ones that bear in this case the faces of Korea's Kim Jong Un. North, Xi Jinping and Russia Vladimir Putin

Perhaps Trump's book to read these days is his 1997 memoir as bankrupt, "The Art of Return". The author is fiery, but he is also hurt. He bluffed and negotiated his return from the edge. But he did a lot of enemies in the process. Many of his old lenders are suspicious of him. In the book, he is already hanging around with Russian, Chinese and Arab big plans that might be able to recapitalize his business.

"I took a huge punishment seeing my empire collapse around me … it crushed my ego, my pride," he says of his risk of personal bankruptcy in 1990 Trump survived through a combination of gossip and soft words, warning lenders that he could tie them up for years with lawsuits and bankruptcy proceedings, but instead offered a agreement to the bankers: if they gave another line of credit of $ 65 million and that they would renew it for five years, he would pay them all, they accepted, and Trump returned to prosperity during the boom of the 1990s.

What does this story tell us about the zigzag diplomacy of recent months? First, Trump's braggadocio masks a deep uneasiness about the position of America in the world.The idealistic and generous nationalist self-image that has supported the America through a century of world domination does not seem to resonate with Trump. He sees the country as exhausted, played, bled financially by its allies and manipulated by its trading partners.

Trump's fundamental pessimism goes against American grain, in my opinion, but perhaps it is understandable for a man who almost fails. This bleak vision has shaped his presidency since he spoke of "American carnage" in his inaugural speech. This speech included a line that could be the Rosetta Stone of his foreign policy: "We have enriched other countries while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country have disappeared on the horizon."

A scornful Trump despised allies. We will see the latest version at this week's NATO summit. He continued to whine Tuesday as he headed for Brussels, claiming that the European Union was taking advantage of us, "and that US support for NATO" is helping them a lot more than it helps us "

Meanwhile, Trump invests in a new set of friends and forgives past transgressions for building a new wallet." Trump expresses this slate program with an almost childish simplicity: "I think to hear with Russia, to get along with China is a good thing. "Who could disagree, but at what cost and with what benefit?

Trump Kim's diplomacy with Kim is the Most interesting test of the direction of his reshuffling strategy.Trump wanted so much success in Singapore that he first organized the triumphal handshake, against the backdrop of North Korean and American flags. intermingled, and left negotiations on denuclearization later on by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Pompeo's reprimand for gangster-type denuclearization demands made headlines last week. But perhaps a more revealing part of the North Korean Foreign Ministry's statement was his elaborate flattery of Trump and his plea for concessions. Before Pyongyang delivers an inventory of weapons to begin denuclearization, for example, he seems to want a formal declaration to end the Korean War. "We continue to cherish our good faith to President Trump," said a pbadage in the statement. It must be said, they know their man – the artist "Comeback", besieged, wounded, hungry for new partners

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