The current G-20 summit: another chance for Trump to show some foreign-policy depth - or not

He's already had sit-downs with a number of leaders since arriving in Japan, with more scheduled. There are also the official group sessions with the entire assemblage.

The prospects that he'll represent the United States with consistency and an understanding of the framework necessary for really enhancing the stability of the world's various neighborhoods is not encouraging.

Let's start with US relations with the host country. It's said that Trump enjoys a warm personal relationship with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, but observers are already remarking that the degree of that comity is going to be key to getting past the way the Very Stable Genius shot off his mouth quite recently:

Though he conceded that the U.S. would honor its mutual defense obligations with its ally in the Pacific if it came to that, Trump asserted that the alliance is a one-way street. “If we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us at all,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo. The Japanese, he added, “can watch it on the Sony television, okay, the attack.”

In a moment of spiking tensions with Iran, the US really needs to foster a sense of a unified front among its allies and potential coalition partners:

Our sanctions on Iran -- including the most recent round targeting the Supreme Leader -- would benefit greatly from getting more G20 countries to mirror them. Iranian officials don't have a lotof assets in the US and didn't do a lot of trade with us to begin with, but if countries with whom Iran has a deeper financial relationship -- including China, the United Arab Emirates and European Union countries -- mirror our sanctions, they would have even more of an impact.

Additionally, several G20 leaders have leverage with the regime. Since American credibility is in question, particularly after we withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, finding a G20 leader to vouch for us would go a long way. China is Iran's largest oil customer and President Xi Jinping will be at the G20. Getting someone like Xi to convince the Iranians to sit down with us again may be the best bet.

Trump isn't exactly off on the right foot with regard to achieving that:

In the last two months, Iran has been implicated in assaults on six foreign merchant vessels, and it has claimed responsibility for an attack on a $130 million American surveillance drone—an attack that reduced U.S. reconnaissance capabilities over the crucial Strait of Hormuz. Trump’s response to these unacceptable provocations was to vent his frustration with America’s prohibitive naval dominance and to fantasize about ceding control of the waves to America’s adversaries.

“China gets 91 [percent] of its Oil from the Straight [sic], Japan 62 [percent, & many other countries likewise,” the president barked on Twitter. “So why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation. All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been a dangerous journey.”

“We don’t even need to be there in that the U.S. has just become (by far) the largest producer of Energy anywhere in the world!” he continued. “The U.S. request for Iran is very simple – No Nuclear Weapons and No Further Sponsoring of Terror!”

That last line of that tweet revisits something LITD has noted often: that Trump has no understanding of the nature of these rogue states, that, for them, it's not a matter of getting something in a "good deal" that would prompt them to ditch the nukes and terror sponsorship. Those activities are at the core of their essences.

It's a lesson he seems not to have learned regarding North Korea, either:

Earlier this week, officials from both countries confirmed North Korean leader Kim Jong Unsent President Donald Trump a letter that North Korea's state news service described as "of excellent content." Neither side disclosed any additional details about the letter's contents. 

Thursday's statement, however, blasted Pompeo for "sophistry" and said that his comments are "full of falsehoods and fabrications." North Korean officials have previously said they will no longer negotiate with Pompeo, accusing him of "talking nonsense" and being "reckless." Pompeo has responded that the North Koreans don't get to decide the composition of the U.S. delegation. 

The latest rhetoric comes at a low point in diplomatic relations between the two countries following two summits the Trump administration organized, one in June 2018 and another in February, which ended abruptly. Both failed to secure any sort of meaningful progress toward denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula in exchange for easing U.S. sanctions. Each side insists the other must act first.

And it follows other new signs that whatever goodwill the Trump administration was able to develop with the Kim regime is deteriorating rapidly. 

In May, North Korea test-fired short-range missiles, which Trump dismissed shortly afterward as not "anything major." His assessment differed from those of some of his top officials, including then-acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan who believed the tests violated U.N. resolutions. 

North Korean officials said Wednesday that South Korea must cease serving as a mediator between Pyongyang and Washington. South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal, has served as a conduit between the two powers as he seeks to achieve one of the principal elements of his administration.

It's possible that by the time this post goes up, some unforeseen breakthrough at G-20 may render all this obsolete, but long-set patterns would argue against it.

He'll more likely wing it, ruffling the feathers of those who could be helpful in steering strategy favorably for the nation-states interested in a stable, safe, prosperous and hopefully ever-more-civilized world - and then expecting them to agree to "beautiful deals."