Homecoming King: Trump Receives a Hero’s Welcome upon Return from Abroad (JK)
President Trump concluded his first foreign trip this Saturday after making nine stops and meeting with many world leaders. Let’s just say it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be. In fact, only halfway through, White House spokespeople claimed that Trump was “exhausted” when he misspoke the term “Islamist extremism” during a speech to Muslim world leaders in Saudi Arabia last week [1]. He certainly didn’t catch a second wind on the last day of his trip when he decided to ride a golf cart after the G7 Summit while the rest of the world leaders walked together [2]. Per usual, the President made headlines every day of the week, whether he opened his mouth or not.
After leaving his pals in Saudi Arabia, Trump traveled to Israel where he met with leaders along the West Bank and visited religious sites. One such site, that is a customary stop for presidents, was the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem. Tradition has been for the president to lay a wreath at the memorial and leave a hand written note. Attention was brought on the uhh… brief note left by Trump, as compared to that of former President Obama [3]. Then again, the note was classic Trump; all caps, 3rd grade level grammar, and under 140 characters.
Next stop, time to meet the Pope! Yes, Pope Francis was lucky enough to meet Trump and we were thrilled to see how not thrilled he was to do it (We weren’t disappointed, just look up the pictures of the meeting, lol). The highlight of the trip was when the Pope passively called Trump fat [4]. No lie. He jokingly said to Melania “What are you feeding him? Potica?” Potica is, apparently, a Slovenian dessert that is high in fat. This is funny for a bunch of reasons: 1) He called Trump fat! 2) He brought attention to the fact that Melania is an immigrant! 3) He made it seem like Melania and Trump actually interact when there aren’t cameras around! Touché, Your Holiness, touché.
Don’t worry, Mr. President, you’re only halfway through your trip. The fun part came when he traveled to Brussels to meet with the “obsolete” group of NATO, which he has been very critical of over the years. This also marks the point where the real politics start and Trump has no idea what’s going on. With that being said, you can understand how the President kind of just turned into a background figure when the adults talked about the issues.
The highlight here is his lunch meeting with newly elected French President, Emmanuel Macron. I wish I could say they had a great meeting and discussed the future relations of the two allied nations, but instead most of the focus was on the handshake between the Presidents. I hope I’m not the first one to tell you about Donald Trump’s hilariously awkward handshakes. He just squeezes as hard as he can and jerks their arm around, probably because of his tiny hands. Macron’s was no different, pictures show his white hands being crushed by Trump’s tiny one. After the meeting, the French President, who is the only one in the meeting that can look further than himself, talked about the significance of the handshake as a “not innocent” and a “moment of truth” [5].
Finally the last stop: the G7 Summit. The annual meeting is usually a time to discuss progress amongst seven democratic, industrialized nations. This year’s meeting may have been the opposite. The main topic of the summit was the Paris Accord, a climate change agreement that would outline the seven nation’s legislation and steps toward curbing climate change. After leaving the meeting, Trump tweeted about making a decision on whether or not to back out of the pact next week. Yup, the U.S. has already committed to the agreement and Trump wants to back out. This really bothered some of the other world leaders, but none other than German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. Surprise, Trump has been critical of her too. After the G7 Summit, Merkel has said that she will continue the Paris Accord regardless of support from Trump and the United States [6].
Donald Trump learned what it is actually like to be the President of the United States. It’s not just taking pictures and giving a few speeches. It’s flying around the world, meeting world leaders, and being presidential all the time. Maybe we’re a little spoiled after watching President Obama do it well for eight years. I hope we can all just take a second to enjoy the idea of a tired and exhausted Trump that was counterproductive on his first international trip, after bashing should-be-President Hillary Clinton for being old and physically unfit for the job. Now he knows the presidential way; shaking hands and eating Solvenian patries.
Written By: CJ Wilcox (@CJWilcox7)
1: http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/22/politics/trump-islamic-islamist/
2: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-g-7-golf-cart_us_592a12cbe4b053f2d2accca6
4: https://apnews.com/7ce974266c0f4073853085d339442cba
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