APEC members, May 2009. Wikimedia Commons

The Jakarta Post-Nov 21

It has not been a good year for diplomacy and summitry. You can call it the Trump Effect. Since the 45th president of the United States proclaimed “America First” and “Make America Great Again”, even staging a kerfuffle-free summit has become a tall order.  Last July, US President Donald Trump managed to drive a wedge between the US and its western European allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by insulting Germany, showing up late for a session and threatening to pull the US out of the 69-year-old alliance. Earlier in June, a G7 meeting ended in disarray after Trump picked a fight with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Last week, during the commemoration of Armistice Day, Trump reignited his petty feud with Emmanuel Macron after the French president schooled him about the dangers of nationalism.

Read more at: http://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2018/11/21/make-apec-boring-again.html

First published in: The Jakarta Post