GEOPOLITICS
SIMON BARBER: Xi plays chess while frantic Trump fumbles tiddlywinks
Monday was Memorial Day, the day the US takes off to honour its war dead and celebrate the start of summer. The great and the good nowadays pay their respects via tweets. Donald Trump, neither great nor good, tweeted a tribute to himself. Referring to the ghosts of Normandy, Iwo Jima, Chosin, Ia Drang and countless other battlefields, he boasted how proud of him they would be for today’s economy, concluding exuberantly: "Nice!" My point is not that he is a repellent human being. That is already well established. What interests me more is the encouraging message his Twitter-spew sends to all who yearn to see the US in retreat. It confirms that the US is led by an insecure, autocratic and vainglorious man who wants to believe he is uniquely clever but in truth knows and feels no history, reads no books, cannot be briefed and is entirely self-obsessed.This is the lens through which to view the curious off-again, on-again bromance between Trump and North Korean uber-thug Kim Jong-un, in...
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