With complete different gestures and postures it was initially convincing to have witnessed two arch rivals and nefarious foes Trump and Putin to shake hands the day before yesterday during the G20 Summit held in Germany. However, the meeting which was expected to be a meaningful discourse soon turned into signal of a great worry for the rest of the world.
Given the outcome of it, for nearly seven decades it was usually the successive American presidents who had represented America and also the rest of the free world. People from all across the globe had put their unquestionable trust in them to raise and discuss all common welfare matters with other important global topics, but this trend has now been shattered in Hamburg. Not only did Donald Trump lack in leadership capabilities in the international stage, but he had also shown clear deficiencies in understanding and then applying the art of astute diplomacy. He also appeared needlessly bafflingly weak and submissive.
From the way round, we hadn’t expected Vladimir Putin to have had the upper hand going into the meeting. Once again he has proved to be a master in the art of cleverly manipulating the international stage. Like never before it was the Russians to have set the global expectations from the meeting. The problem is – other than previewing exchange of views and discussing global matters – highly important summits like the G20 sends the clear message about what the United States expects to accomplish. How prepared is it for engaging in difficult topics on the table – more importantly to define America’s role in today’s’ world. These are usually the core purpose of such globally important summits. This time the outcome was completely different both for America and the other 19 member states.
Trump reportedly pressed his Russian counterpart on findings of Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election. The two Presidents had also agreed on a prearranged limited Syrian cease-fire. Temporary ceasefire options in Syria were applied many times before by yielding little result while making the humanitarian situation even worse in that country.
Following a set of irrelevant discussions like – former president Obama’s indolence to properly investigate the Russian meddling in US elections, how the Iraq war could have been averted and intelligence community’s wrong information of Iraq possessing weapon of mass destruction and etc… It evidently turned into a meeting where Donald. J. Trump had informally handed off the ‘World Leader’ baton to the Russian President. In the midst of so many age-old prevailing international disputes and deadlocks there was no conclusive agreement on any issue either. For instance, on the ever changing Climate Change issue the victim countries will now start eyeing Russia.
What’s extremely odd about the meeting is that – The White House and the Russian government had released completely different accounts of Trump and Putin’s conversation. To put it simply – even if the Russians are proved to have meddled in US elections – neither Trump nor Putin will ever admit it. The twos’ one-sided meeting was also a missed opportunity for the world to solve long-standing crises mutually.
The final point, however, the Trump-Putin first time meeting clearly hints at the quick shifting of America’s global leadership role, it can be said to have commenced from their very first meeting, but the question is to whom and when? To sum it up in short – chasing huge uncertainty the world now has no leader to look up to.
