Errol Horwitz, Cape Town
As it turned out, the Europeans realised their mistake. They now view Trump as an unprepared and ill-informed dilettante, whose sentence structure is limited to a noun, a verb, and ending in “fake news” or “build a wall”.
The world will be watching Trump closely on his international tour of the Middle East and Europe – not for diplomatic triumphs of his making, but rather to what extent Trump will erode America’s global standing even further.
Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of the conservative National Interest Journal, told a meeting at the German Foreign Office that “the dominant reaction to Trump right now is mockery”, to which the word “irrelevant” can also be added.
Irrelevant inasmuch as the upcoming Nato meeting with Trump has been downgraded from a summit to a dinner. Those attending the meeting have been asked to confine remarks between two to four minutes to keep Trump’s attention. In other words, there is no need to invest meaningful time and effort, because the Trump presidency is destined to be the shortest in US history.
