Putin Humiliates Trump By Arriving A Half An Hour Late For Their Meeting

Donald Trump put his name on a book about deal-making, “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” and has sold himself as the an expert at making deals. But when it comes to President Putin, Trump got trumped — again.

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Putin landed in Helsinki later than expected for summit with Trump. The Russian President landed in Helsinki on Monday about half an hour behind schedule for his meeting with Trump.

Putin, who styles himself a strong man in the same way as Trump does, often arrives late for meetings with world leaders, including Germany’s Angela Merkel.

President Trump returned the slight by not departing his hotel until he kept the Russian President waiting. This is an old strategy of Trump’s — a stale, tired, Death-of-a-Salesman type transparent tactic born of a little mind who believes in the power over and under paradigm and believes power is something that is exerted forcefully. It should come as no surprise that other dictators are drawn to this style of attempted psychological warfare that reads more like high school jostling.

In 1989, Trump tried to tell the man who was negotiating for President George H.W. Bush to: “Arrive late, poke your finger into your adversary’s chest and swear at him with a vulgar insult, he told Richard R. Burt.”

Experts have concluded what is obvious, and that is that Putin is bound to come out on top from this summit, since he already wins just by getting the recognition. “… in Russia, where the political system is obsessed with hierarchy, status and displays of raw power, Putin has ‘already got his victory,’ said Andrey Kortunov, head of RIAC, a foreign policy think-tank close to the Foreign Ministry.

“‘It allows him to make his point that Russia is not isolated, that Russia is a great power, and to some extent can even claim an equal status with the United States, at least in the security field,’ said Kortunov.”

Putin also knows what he wants (sanctions lifted as much as possible, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad remain, Ukraine solution, keep bases in Syria, and be elevated to world leader status) and Putin is a trained manipulator, whereas Donald Trump – charming as he reportedly can be in person – is not, and his ego makes him an easy target.

Trump has repeatedly given concessions before getting anything in his negotiations with other leaders — oddly, especially those to whom he, as President of the United States, didn’t even need to acknowledge as an equal peer, let alone prematurely concede things.

It’s possible that Trump is getting something for himself out of these “deals”, but he is not getting something for the United States except degradation and a growing national security threat.

Sarah Jones

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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

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