Assuming that the accounts of the nearly impromptu meeting between Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto and Donald Trump are accurate, and they vary so little that there can be little doubt that they are, Donald Trump came away with singed hair and burnt fingers, but that's far better than he could have expected. As to Nieto, though he did what he probably wanted to do, he didn't do it well, and now he is paying the price in the form of heavy criticism for even having the meeting, much less standing passively by while Trump characterized what seems to have been a non-event as the initiation of détente between the two. I presumed upon hearing of the meeting that Nieto was setting Trump up...that he would publicly repeat what he had already said: that Mexico wasn't paying for any wall. And he did that during the meeting. But after the meeting, he stood silent while Trump excused himself for failing to effectively insist by claiming that the subject never came up. So, while Nieto later tweeted that he had done what he had indubitably intended to do all along during the private talks, he had let his opportunity for political gain slip away at the press conference. His only hope of redeeming his reputation with the Mexican electorate was to confront Trump in the open, and Nieto's one sentence tweet after the fact of allowing Trump to tell a bald-faced lie at Nieto's expense was no substitute. It may be that Nieto will come off like more of a statesman than Trump for restraining himself, but his goal must have been to show who was "mas macho," not who was the better diplomat, and that goal wasn't met. Still, as to Donald Trump there was nothing gained, and if anything, he manifested what has been a persistent criticism of him: that he is an apostate with regard to his own policies and that he is all talk.
How many times have we heard Trump excuse himself for something he said by either making light of it, as when he said that he was only kidding when he insisted to a conservative talk-show host that he really meant it when he said that President Obama and Hillary Clinton were the founders of ISIS. How many times has he had to parse his prior statements in order to make what is patently offensive or absurd seem like nothing more than imprecise diction. But this time, we are talking about Trump's boast that he would build a " 'uge wall," and make Mexico pay for the wall he has promised to build, and assuming that he will build the wall in any case...apparently whether congress, which controls the money needed to build it if Mexico won't come up with the money, agrees to or not. With that in mind, it seems that Trump's mouth is making promises that his ego can't keep. Even a Republican congress isn't any more likely to fund Trump's fantasy project than is Mexico, and now Trump has been told at least twice by the one Mexican who can make the decision unilaterally that Mexico is out. And Trump's response to this embarrassing but tacit realization: "They're gonna' pay for the wall, believe me!" as if the phrase "believe me" makes it a reality.
I'm sure that this isn't the last time that his ego will get his ass-pirations in trouble. That's in his nature, and like old dogs, there is not teaching him new tricks. But this latest contretemps has potential to be his undoing. The wall is central to his charismatic appeal among those for whom thinking is only an occasional pass time. Any one who thinks about what Trump has done in Mexico will see that everything he has said he could do in the past is far more speculative than he would have us all believe. Sooner or later, someone is going to make the point that Trump's self-vaunting claims of artful deal making are just that. He has made a lot of money breaking his word to contractors and creditors, so conniving is certainly one of his cardinal skills, but deal making? If you want to consider deceiving people and then defaulting on your promises to be making a deal, then Trump's your man. But as in the case of Trump making the government of Mexico pay for his wall, he had the chance to make the demand and he couldn't even do that...he couldn't even talk about it when his adversary on the point brought it up.
You have to take into consideration the haplessness of the Democratic Party when you assess the value of this most recent Trump fiasco. Whether Hillary Clinton will be able to articulate the ways in which Trump has failed to make good to substantial effect is an open question. Conclusory statements about how she sees Trump's stumbling through the real world won't do. But she has advisors and the debates are about to take place. She needs for them to give her a pat description of Trump, using all of these mishandled statements and deeds as examples of not just failure, but of incompetence, and more important, lack of judgment...overreaching in particular. It worked in her campaign against Bernie Sanders, and he was a far more popular figure than Trump will ever be. Let's hope she can do it again.
Your friend,
Mike
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